Metamorphosis
by cronashy-absentia
Summary: The world's rotten. Meisters, weapons, and Death kill witches without mercy. Tired of cowering, Eruka takes a stand to rewrite the fabric of time itself, hoping to change her destiny. With two reluctant stowaways and Free traveling with her, Eruka ventures into the past to rip apart bonds, contorting the world in ways she never could have predicted... Or desired. (Anime-verse.)
1. Metamorphosis 1

Wet moss squelches beneath her boots when Eruka pulls her knees to her chest. She reaches her right hand to her left shoulder, but recoils and curses under her breath when she feels that the wound's still bleeding. One overzealous knife meister owes her another patch for her sleeve.

The swamp's chorus of frogs sounds loud in her ears, echoing from the trees and filling the mist that seems to swallow her. It's almost calming enough to soothe her rage for a moment, and she rocks herself slightly to their melody.

 _Erase the memory of today's failure. Erase the memory of yesterday's failure. Erase all failures. Erase everything._

She catches her train of thought before it gets away from her. Nothing good can come from that way of thinking, she scolds herself, and she slaps her cheeks once to ground her in the present.

"Why do you do that?"

She jumps at Free's voice, and the swamp's song falters for a moment after drowning out his footsteps. Taking a breath, she collects herself, smoothing out her dress.

"I just do," she mutters, not turning to look at him. "It's not your problem."

He sighs and sits next to her, sending some of the frogs ducking under the water in fear. Before she can yell at him for it, he plants one of his large hands on her head, rubbing her orange hat back and forth.

"You've been a very grumpy frog lately, Eruka," he says in that simple voice of his; the one that makes her want to hit him upside the head with one of her bombs in the hopes that his brains fall back into place.

Her small hands clasp onto his palm and attempt to wrench it off of her. "Free! You'll ruin my hair!" she squeaks, glaring at the smirk she sees forming on his face.

"Not until you tell me what's bugging you," he replies, and it's just further evidence of how he's become too comfortable with her lately, much too touchy and smiley for Eruka's liking. His smirk falls when she smacks his hand away.

"I'm frustrated," she snaps, turning away from Free again. "Aren't you?"

Free shrugs. "Eh. Not really," he says. "We run from meisters all the time. They hit us, you run, I try and kill them. That's how it works."

Eruka peers up at him while straightening out the brim of her hat. "But aren't you tired of it being like that? Don't you wish it could be different?"

Free scratches at his stubble for a minute, glancing up at the foggy sky. "Uh… I dunno. Never thought about it," he admits absentmindedly.

Eruka growls a little to herself. "Well, I do. A Lot," she grumbles. Standing to her feet, she straightens out her hat one last time before dusting moss off of her dress. "Nevermind. Let's just get back," she says, starting off towards Medusa's fortress.

"Right behind you," she hears Free call, but she doesn't turn around to look.

* * *

Sometimes Eruka thinks she can feel Medusa watching her through the walls of her former home. Every empty hallway seems like a dark alley filled with places for snakes to hide, ready to leap out at her and squirm down her throat, like Medusa had said she had done to that little girl. Every night before she sleeps, she makes sure to put charms all around her bed and every entrance to the room to ward off whatever specter or spell that the snake witch might have left behind.

Even so, Eruka very rarely sleeps more than three hours a night.

She shivers as she walks through the halls, even with Free behind her.

"I hate living here," she whispers, even though they're alone.

Behind them, five voices suddenly remind Eruka that that's the third time she's complained about the place this week.

She jumps a little at first, but Eruka quickly relaxes when she glances behind herself at the small mouse-like witches. "Oh. Hello, Mizune," she says.

They return the greeting in unison before they ask if she was successful in bringing back food.

Eruka deflates a little. "No, sorry," she says quietly. "There was a meister and his weapon in the area. They found us before we could get anything."

They see, the Mizune say with the tiniest slump of their shoulders. That's alright; they should have enough food to last another week.

"That's what you said last time," Eruka murmurs.

"I still don't see how you can understand them," Free adds, earning himself a sideways glance from Eruka.

Well it's true, the sisters reply, ignoring Free. The food just has to be rationed out differently. They should be fine, and Free's immortal anyway. They pause, and then ask quietly if Eruka's okay; she looks tense.

She realizes then that her hands are clenched at her sides, her dress bunched up in her fists, her knuckles white. Quickly she releases her hold, clearing her throat. "Sorry," she says swiftly. All of their eyes lay on her as she takes a step back. "I'll be in the lab, if anyone needs me."

As she walks off, she hears the Mizune whisper to each other that she'd never go in there before, that it always reminded her too much of Medusa, so what changed? It must be something major.

"Eruka!" Free shouts, running a stride or two to catch up with her. His hand settles on her shoulder, stopping her. "Eruka, something's wrong." It's a statement, not a question. She tries to shrug his hand off, but he doesn't move, either because he's stubborn or he's too dense to take a hint.

"I'm fine," she says.

"You're not."

Her fists clench again. "I'm _fine_ ," she says again between clenched teeth.

Free's grip tightens. "Eruka…"

Something within her snaps, a frayed rope unraveling before breaking under the weight of its load.

"I'm tired, okay?!" she finally bursts out, glaring at the stark white linoleum beneath her boots. "I'm tired of getting attacked. I'm tired of living in a world where being a witch means I have to constantly fear for my life. I'm tired of being powerless to change anything," she tells him. Her confessions spill out as if a dam inside her head's been broken. "I just want it all gone. I want to start over."

Free is silent for a minute. "You can't though," he says when he finally speaks. "You can't just get rid of everything."

She turns around, looking Free directly in his normal eye. Though he towers over her, all muscle and brawn, she doesn't feel small in this moment.

"But what if I could?" she murmurs. Free's eyebrows raise. "What if there was some way to make things better? To erase everything that…" She stops, about to say _everything that scares me_ , but she corrects herself before she speaks. "… Everything that's wrong with the world."

Free remains silent, so she continues. "Maybe there's something that can do that in the lab, or at least a manuscript or written spell. If I can get my hands on a weapon that she engineered, I can use it to finish off the DWMA! No more problems for us or any witches, Free!" Excitement begins to fill her now that she imagines the possibilities, and a smile begins to spread on her lips. "We won't have to be afraid anymore, we won't have to hide anymore, and we can be proud to have magic! All I have to do is find something that can destroy our enemies and problems, and with enough power I'm sure I can!"

Free seems unaffected by her unusual beam, and the longer they stand there, the more Eruka realizes that his emotionless gaze is more of a glare, and the more her face falls.

"So… What do you think?" she finally asks, unable to stand the tense silence any longer. He glances away from her for a moment.

"I think you sound like Medusa," he tells her, his voice low. Eruka immediately stiffens. It takes but a moment for her to stand there in shock before her emotions contort themselves into rage. She grabs his shirt and twists the fabric in her fist – even though she can only reach as high as his mid-chest – and gives him a fierce scowl. There are few things that anger her as much as being put on the same tier as the witch she most despises.

"Never," she growls, "compare me to _her_."

Free doesn't waver, and his stoic expression begins to intimidate her, but her harsh gaze remains poignant. She merely releases her hold, backs away, and turns on her heel to head into the lab. "Leave me alone and don't follow me," she calls over her shoulder. But when she opens the door to the dark lab and the scent of sterilization and dust floods the air, the feeling that Medusa's watching her comes creeping back, and she wishes for a moment that she wasn't alone.

* * *

Eruka's frustration climbs the longer she searches for anything of value. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to how Medusa stored her manuscripts, and many of them seem to be stolen from Mabaa's archives.

She's busy leaning over a table, deciphering an aged tome when she hears a loud thud, followed by an immediate cry of pain, causing her to freeze. Looking up from her work cautiously, she sees Free wander into the lab with a dazed look, rubbing his forehead. She assumes that he's run into the doorframe again.

"I know you told me not to follow you," he says, not meeting her eye. Eruka finds this slightly odd as he seemed unable to stop staring her down earlier. "But I made tea and wanted to know if it tasted good. I was going to ask the Mizune, but I still can't understand them, so…" he trails off while offering her the small cup he holds. Something about his story doesn't add up, but she ignores it as she takes the drink from him and sips it. With her jumpy nerves, Eruka never was one to refuse a calming drink.

Immediately she spits the vile liquid from her mouth, wetting the document and table in front of her. As she gags, Free blanches. His stunned look lasts only a moment, however, and he appears to be desperately trying to keep himself together before he bursts out laughing. Eruka jumps a little at the sudden noise.

"That bad, huh?" he guffaws, delight in his voice. "Sorry, but that was priceless! And it went all over your work!" he points out with a grin.

Eruka wipes her lip with her sleeve, trying to act like she _isn't_ scared at the slightest unexpected sound or movement. "It's fine," she says, coughing once, shoving the ruined tome into the trash bin at the end of the table. "The paper was old, so I was trying to figure out what it said, but I'm pretty sure it was just a basic spell for curing wounds." She turns to Free, one eyebrow raised. "This wasn't all a prank, was it?"

He shakes his head quickly, his laughter dying down to chuckles. "No; I actually did want you to try my tea. Thought you might like it. Guess I need to try again," he chortles. With a long sigh, he finally seems to calm himself down while Eruka pushes past him to grab a rolled-up piece of paper from a nearby shelf. "So, having any luck?"

She narrows her eyes at the page, gripping the sides until they wrinkle beneath her grasp. "Shopping list," she grumbles.

"What was that?" Free asks. She shakes her head as she wads up the paper in her hands.

"Nothing. And no, I'm not having any luck. Everything in here is stolen, illegible, or research notes on black blood and Crona," she murmurs, pulling another book off the shelf anyway. "Medusa had no superweapon, and she didn't have any need for one. Crona was her superweapon. And when they failed, Asura took their place." She closes the book; it's a useless nursing text. "I was never going to find anything in here. I shouldn't have got my hopes up."

Free walks over to stand next to her, looking over the shelves. "Well… You may still find something," he says, possibly trying to sound eager, but it's not working. "The stuff you want could just be out of your reach."

Eruka lets the textbook drop to the ground and crosses her arms over her chest. "Free, stop," she mumbles.

"Like this one… Or not," he mutters to himself, apparently ignoring her. "Or this… No, that's not useful either."

"Please, Free."

"This looks cool! But it's about soul study…"

"Free!"

He glances down at her, a confused look on his face. "What? I'm trying to help you. What about this? It's a protection spell."

"Free, stop it!" Eruka shouts, grabbing his arm. "Just give up! There's nothing in here!"

Free grabs three scrolls with one hand despite her protests. "I'm sure there's something!" he yells back, yanking his arm away from her to pull open the scrolls before dropping them to the floor in succession. "Time spell! What about a time spell? Or this one that enchants objects! Or this one that makes you float!"

"Why are you trying so hard?!" screeches Eruka. She isn't prepared for when Free rounds on her, fangs bared, the last scroll dropping to the floor with a loud _clang_.

"Because I want you to stop being so upset all the time!"

Eruka freezes up, scared by his tone. She tries to hold her ground, even though every one of her reflexes is telling her to transform, run away, hide. "S-so this is all about me being unpleasant?!" she shoots back, failing to keep the nervous stutter from her voice.

Free snarls at her. "That's NOT what this is about AT ALL!"

She can't help it anymore. Her body disappears in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a small green frog that instantly hops into the pile of scrolls to hide.

Shivering, Eruka cowers even as she hears him curse through his teeth. "Eruka? I didn't mean to do that. Can you come on out?"

She's not sure if she should move. One part of her says she can trust Free, the other part argues that he just yelled at her.

"Eruka, come on," he says, kneeling down next to the pile. She knows he won't try to pull her out by force, but she can't help but back up a little when she can barely see Free moving closer. "Look, I meant what I said; I really didn't mean to scare you. If I could go back and undo it, I could."

Her small eyes widen.

Free coughs at the puff of smoke Eruka produces when she transforms back. "Say that again," she says softly, staring at him, ideas churning in her head. Like overseeing a chessboard, plans and solutions and outcomes expand across her mind.

"Uh…" Free stares at her, confused again. "If I could go back and undo it, I…"

"That's it," Eruka says, already sifting through the scrolls. "If you could go back," she repeats, mostly to herself. When she finds the paper she had been looking for, a rare feeling of hope ignites in her chest. "We _can_ go back, Free," she breathes. She hasn't felt this exhilarated since before meeting Medusa.

Free raises the eyebrow above his brown eye. "And stop me from yelling at you?" he wonders. Eruka's too excited to do so much as roll her eyes at his thick-headed understanding.

"Not quite," she says, her heart rate growing faster the longer she stares at the time travel spell in her hands. "I'm thinking a little bigger."


	2. Metamorphosis 2

"Eruka."

Eruka ignores the nagging voice, instead focusing on the scroll and circle sketch in front of her.

"Eruka."

Adding another note to her sketch, taking another glance at the spell, she does her best to block him out. The faster she works, the more easily she can avoid thinking about that little voice in the back of her head. The one that constantly chants: _You can't. You're just a weak little frog witch. You can't._

"Eeeeruuukaaa."

She grips the pencil a little tighter in her hand but refuses to acknowledge Free. That is, until he begins poking her shoulder, accentuating every touch with a syllable of her name.

"E. Ru. Ka."

She whips around, glaring at him. " _Yes_ , Free?" she snaps. Unfazed, the werewolf stares at her simply.

"Are you gonna take a break?" he asks. "You've been sitting here for hours."

"No," she replies promptly. "This is important."

Free glances at her work. "That looks complicated."

She nods pointedly. "It is. So can you leave-!"

"What does this mean?" Free interrupts, pointing at the sketch. Eruka rolls her eyes but clears her throat.

" _That_ is the kronogram required to expand this spell beyond its predetermined limits and increase its size and strength exponentially," she explains. Her words, however, are met with a blank look from Free. Eruka can practically feel her patience dissolving. "It's the magic circle I need to travel through time for longer periods than what this spell suggests," she clarifies. "Basically, I'm taking this," she points to the scroll, "and making it better."

Free's eyes widen a little, and Eruka releases a small sigh when she realizes that he's finally understood.

"I didn't know you could do that," he says, a slight hint of awe in his voice. "Change and add on to spells like that."

She smiles slightly. "Well, it's easy if you know where to tweak it," she says while one of her hands idly fiddles with the brim of her hat. "Originally the spell is only supposed to keep you in another time for a few minutes. But if I enhance its performance with a spell circle, I can stay in other times for as long as I need."

Free deposits himself in the chair next to her, shaking the floor a little with his weight. Eruka panics for a split second when her inkwell almost tips over onto her sketch.

"Why do you want to time travel again?" Free wonders while Eruka grumbles to herself for a moment about how wolves are supposed to be graceful.

" _Because,_ " she says as she places the inkwell a suitable distance away from her parchment, "If I go back in time to change the past, I can keep the Reaper from winning, making the world safe for witches."

Free scratches his head. "Uh… From winning what?"

The question makes Eruka pause. She _should_ know exactly what she wants to prevent. And yet, she can't quite put her finger on what she needs to do. She rushed into preparing the spell before she had much of a chance to think about what she should do with it.

What she needs is a game changer, she thinks. Something to upset the groundwork of the current timeline, ensure failure in the DWMA's fight against witches and kishin, and propose peace for every magic-user. But there's too many options, too many variables, too many potential targets. Should she try and prevent pieces of the timeline, or alter them? What should she change, and how would that change the present?

 _See,_ her thoughts say, louder now that she's not working. _You know you can't do this._

She tries again to block it out.

"I'm not quite sure," she admits after a minute of silence, in which Free has managed to nearly spill himself from his chair by leaning back too far.

"Well, we could attack them," he proposes after righting himself. "In the past. So they don't attack us now, or in the closer past, or whenever you don't want them to."

Eruka shakes her head. "Not possible. We're two people, Free. Seven if you count the Mizune. Even all of Arachnophobia couldn't take down the DWMA," she murmurs.

Free chuffs. "That's just because they weren't aiming at the right places," he grins. "The DWMA just knows how to throw weapons around. If ya really want to kill someone, fight with your own claws and skills, and aim for the neck."

Eruka glances at him. "It's not like the entire system of the DWMA has a neck I can slice," she mutters.

Free returns the look with a shrug, idly picking something out of his teeth. "The backbone's the next best thing," he says. "Does the DWMA have a backbone?"

His tone implies that he's joking, but Eruka is quick to realize the genius behind his words. "Yes, it does," she says slowly, incredulously. Free raises one eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yes, really," Eruka replies, almost knocking her chair over when she jumps up and runs over to Medusa's row of filing cabinets. She had found the folders tucked away in the drawers when searching for spells, stored alphabetically in neat little sections, like any good nurse would sort her paperwork. Initially Eruka had thought that they'd be no use to her. Now she whipped out one of the first papers, the tab on the top reading ALBARN, M, and tosses it onto the table for Free to see.

"The backbone of the DWMA," she states proudly, almost giddy at her own ingenuity as she opens the folder to display everything a nurse would need to know about a patient, "Is their meisters and weapons."

Free peers at the paper, frowning for a moment when he lays eyes on the student photo attached to the file with a paperclip.

"Hey, I remember her," he mutters, his voice almost a low growl. "She tried to kill me. Failed pathetically, but she tried to kill me."

Eruka smirks. "Then you may just get your chance at revenge," she says, pointing to one of the dates on the paper. "This document says that _this day_ is the day she became partners with her weapon. So with that I can-!"

"Why would Medusa need that?" Free wonders out loud, interrupting her. She frowns.

"The faculty and staff of the DWMA send out cards to partners for the anniversary of their meeting," she explained quickly. "Do you not remember how many times Medusa complained about having to do it to keep her image?"

Free shakes his head, and Eruka suppresses a groan. "The point is," she says slowly, "All we have to do is prevent them from becoming partners. No strong teams, no backbone. No backbone, no DWMA. Simple enough?"

By the time she finishes, Free's fanged and malevolent grin stretches from ear to ear. "Got it," he chuckles.

"In the meantime," Eruka adds, quickly forming a plan, "I can use the original time spell to go to these dates and find the exact moment these partners formed their bonds," she says half to herself. "I can't change anything, though. With the spell in its current state, if I changed something, future me would cease to exist."

The grin suddenly falls from Free's face as his eyes grow wide. "Don't do that," he says quickly. Eruka stops to stare at him for a moment, shooting the werewolf an odd look. She could swear that he almost blushes when he avoids her gaze and mumbles, "I mean that that'd be bad. I, or future me, or present me or whatever, wouldn't exist either, right?"

"Right," she nods, shaking off whatever odd feeling he gave her a second ago. "I can't get past that problem until I complete the spell. But there'd be no point in fixing it without knowing where I'm supposed to travel to in the first place, so I should scope out possible targets first."

It's not worth it, five voices murmur behind her. Eruka barely avoids jumping at the sudden noise.

"They came in as quiet as a mouse," Free whispers to her, chuckling at his own joke. She shoots him a glare before she turns around to face the small witches.

"Why isn't it worth it, Mizune?" she says. "Of course it's worth it. This would save countless witches' lives."

The sisters glance at each other briefly. The next thing said is only spoken by one of them, the Mizune at the head of the group. She says Eruka's name slowly and quietly. Nothing good has ever happened to a witch that interfered with time, she reminds her. Doesn't she remember what happened to the last witch to tampered with time?

Eruka freezes. "Mabaa's daughter," she breathes.

"Mabaa doesn't have a daughter," Free says, oblivious. Eruka takes a breath to calm her nerves.

"She doesn't _now_ ," she murmurs. "The story of her daughter is supposed to be secret, but most every witch knows it. She erased herself from time hundreds of years ago. Only Mabaa was able to remember her, and she outlawed time travel." Eruka says, releasing her hold from the table when she realizes she's been gripping it. Her knuckles are white when she glances at them, her hands shaking slightly with fear.

Medusa never attempted this spell, even though she had it in her library, the Mizune speak together. A time spell would've benefitted her immensely, but even _she_ knew it wasn't worth losing herself to time.

Eruka frowns. "Are you saying that I can't do something better than Medusa?"

The sisters pause. No… No, they didn't mean anything like that. It's just that it's really dangerous. For Eruka's safety, she should stay in her own timeline.

Her fists clench again, but out of anger rather than fear. "I can do this," she says, both to the Mizune and to that voice that's started its insults again. "I _can_ be a greater witch than Medusa, I _can_ change time, and I _can_ survive doing it. And if you're not going to be helpful, you don't need to be in this lab." She juts her finger towards the door, hearing Free quietly say her name behind her, but she doesn't turn to face him.

The Mizune move closer together and share quick glances. Eruka watches as some unspoken command flitters through them right before they turn and walk out the door without another word.

Eruka stares after them for just a moment as her anger dies down. What's left feels like an empty hole without the support of her former closest friends.

"Free," she says quietly, finally turning to him. He looks up at her silently, unreadable but definite emotion in his brown eye. "I'll work better if I'm left alone."

He merely nods, hoisting himself from the table, following the Mizune's path out the door, and Eruka's left alone again. Alone with the voice.

 _Your friends don't believe in you. You should listen to them. They're right; you can't do this._

Eruka sets her jaw, trying to calm the shaking in her fists.

"Shut _up_ ," she hisses pointedly at no one. She whips around swiftly, snatching up the time spell. If she works as quickly as she can, maybe the voice will stop being as loud.

* * *

She's not sure how long she's been working when Free interrupts her again. She doesn't hear him at first; her ears haven't popped yet from her latest jump into the past.

"Eruka?"

She blinks when his voice finally reaches her, looking up at him, taking a moment to stick a finger in her ear as if she could simply unclog them.

"Are you doing okay?" She can barely hear him. "How long have you been at this?"

She winces when her ears suddenly clear. "Uh… I don't really know," she says, glancing at the clock on the wall. _1:42_. "I keep going back in time, so that adds a lot of extra minutes. About three every trip, and I've lost track of how many times I've gone," she says, a yawn trailing her words.

Free's gaze travels to the mess of papers and notes sprawled across the table like the beginnings of an origami legion. "What are you even doing?" he wonders, sniffing some of the notes. "These reek of Reaper."

Eruka's quick to snatch the sheets from his claws. "That's because I wrote them near the Reaper's son. They were _also_ in order," she mutters. As she smooths out the pile, she adds, "I've selected three significant weapon-meister pairs from Medusa's files: Meisters Maka Albarn, Black Star, and Death the Kid." She pauses for a second. "At least, I _hope_ they're significant. I can remember Medusa talking about them. Anyway, theoretically it should be simple to find the day they chose their weapons, use the time spell to go to that date, and figure out exactly what she needed to do to stop them."

Free frowns. "Theoretically?" he says, leaving his question open. Eruka sighs in the middle of writing another note.

"The Reaper's son was difficult, but I've managed to gather enough information with an invisibility spell to know that his weapons had been criminals in New York up until a few months before they became partners," she says. "Black Star's was the easiest; he met his partner on the first day of school, like most students. But each required multiple short trips to the past, and…" she cuts herself off, biting her lip. She knows that if she finishes her sentence, telling him that her body is beginning to ache, he'd flip out.

His eyes narrow predictably. "And what?" he prompts her, his voice low. Eruka gulps.

"And it's hard, okay? Maka and her little scythe are being really hard to track down," she says. What she doesn't say is that Basic magic, skills witches are born with, take very little energy. But Addition magic, the kind written in spellbooks, is much more exhausting, and it's beginning to take its toll on her. "But I'll be fine."

Free's look clearly says that he doesn't believe her. "Really?" he says, sarcasm evident in his tone. "You have bags under your eyes, Eruka."

She gulps a little, the tiniest of croaks escaping her lips. As much as she hates the tiniest blemish on her complexion, her work is more important. Free's aware of the power of his words; that small smirk on the corner of his lip says it all. He's manipulating her on purpose.

"I know what I'm doing," she says forcefully, standing from her chair and grabbing the spell. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find out more about Maka Albarn."

Free's smirk falls. He only sits there staring at her as she whispers the spell to herself before the world becomes a blur. Time unravels around her, whirling past her with such force that her ears ring and her silver hair blows around her face.

When the whirring stops and she finally opens her eyes, she's standing once again in the streets of Death City. She takes a deep breath, quickly activating her Soul Protect before she sneaks into the maze of alleyways to find out what she can.

* * *

She always arrives back a split second after she left, though her trips take minutes. Free's always sitting there, watching her with an expression that seems almost sad as she moves over to the table to record her findings before traveling back again.

The words Eruka writes begin to blur on their pages. When she goes back to check what she's already jotted down, her own handwriting is so ragged that it's barely legible. Free's evidently given up trying to get her to stop, but he doesn't move from his seat beside her.

Each blink lasts longer. Her eyelids feel heavy, and opening them again after closing them takes much more effort than it should. She realizes that she must be drifting off, because one moment she's sitting at her desk, and the next she dreams that she's floating down the hall, high off the ground, surrounded by a sort of firm warmth.

She closes her eyes again, somehow hoping that if she falls asleep in her dream, she'll wake up in reality. But when she opens them next, she's gazing up at the ceiling in her room, a faint light coming from her bedside lamp.

Immediately she stiffens, her breath quickening, but a strong hand's quickly set on her shoulder.

"Shhh. Your work can wait," Free's voice murmurs. "And don't worry about your protection spells; I'll be awake all night right here. Okay?"

All Eruka can do is nod as her heartbeat slows again. She's too tired to do anything else, and sleep is quick to grab her once more.


	3. Metamorphosis 3

Eruka's chalk scrapes along the ground. Every line, every curve, every motion she makes with her hand must be entirely perfect if this is to work.

Free patrols in a circle around her, sniffing the air. "I don't like this," he says for the fifth time as he crosses his arms over his broad chest. "We shouldn't be here."

She doesn't stop, reluctant to lift up her chalk and break a perfect line. "We'll be fine," she reminds him. "I've got Soul Protect on, and your soul doesn't attract as much attention in your human form, Eruka adds as she begins adding the necessary sigils to the border of the circle.

"It's too risky," Free growls as he sits down outside her drawing. He keeps casting nervous glances towards the darkened windows of the building beside them. "There's got to be some other power source you can get."

Eruka pauses. She straightens up, looking straight into Free's eyes. Even sitting down, he's barely shorter than her.

"The time spell was incomplete because the original author couldn't find anything to charge the required kronogram," she explains, "But I figured out exactly what it needed by deciphering the algorithm. The spell needs a certain level of power that also crosses spacial boundaries."

Free nods like he understands, although Eruka can tell he's faking, before she adds, "You didn't have to come, either."

His eyes narrow. "Like I'm going to let you do this alone."

Eruka doesn't say anything, but since the night he carried her to bed, she's noticed how Free's been protective of her lately. It isn't like she's grateful to have less to worry about, although it strikes her as odd. She doesn't dwell on it though; she can't waste time wondering what's going on in his thick head. She has better things to focus on.

"We've been here for hours though," Free mutters while her chalk forms shapes and symbols on the flagstone.

"Yes, so I can get this right."

"But this is _Death City_ ," Free says with the slightest hint of a dog-like whimper in his voice. "This place is _crawling_ with meisters and weapons."

"Not at five a.m.," she replies with a nod at the dark sky. A small lantern they set nearby lights up the ground so she can see the circle she's crafting, the small words and large shapes of which spread below her feet like the intricate weavings of a spider's web.

Free huffs. "Eruka, I'm serious," he snaps, pointing at the apartment complex. "That building right there is full of sleeping people, and you're in real danger standing right next to it. This isn't worth it. "

With the complete circle etched on the cold ground, void of imperfections and stark white against the dark flagstone, Eruka picks up her chalk. With a soft glow, the circle spontaneously seals in place; no amount of rain or scuffing could wipe it away now. "It's worth it," she breathes, lightly clapping the chalk dust from her hands, "Because to fix the past, we need Soul Resonance."

Free pales. Like lights switching on, she can see the horrified understanding enter his face. "You told me we were out here because there was an energy source," he says in a low voice, his eyes wide. "Are you saying that you plan to get a _meister_ and a _weapon_ over here? Near _you_? _Willingly_?"

Eruka shoots him a small glare. "I'm not a coward," she lies while picking up the lantern and blowing it out. She doesn't confirm that she's terrified of being in the heart of Death City, terrified of luring in a meister-weapon pair, and terrified of getting hurt in the process. "I picked a team with a strong Resonance. This location, this exact spot," she points to the ground, "Isn't random."

He frowns. "What are you saying?"

Eruka merely closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. Heart leaping like a toad trapped inside her chest, she stands her ground, refusing to run now that she's so invested in this, even while her legs tremble.

 _You'll die_ , she hears the searing voice in her head say. _You'll die and everything you did will be useless._

Every instinct tells her to run. Transform and run, go and hide where she'll be safe.

She doesn't move. Before she can rethink her plan again, before she second-guesses herself another time, she whispers, "Soul Protect off."

Free leaps from his place on the ground, charging towards her. She flinches when he grabs her shoulders, screaming at her about how they should've never come and they need to get out of there _now_ , seemingly forgetting that they're still in a city prepared to attack them and that his yelling puts them in even more danger. Eruka even goes so far as to count on her fingers the amount of seconds it takes for them to be discovered.

 _One. Two. Three. Four._

One yellow light in a window above them switches on. Free freezes, and his eyes shift swiftly to the room shrouded by curtains.

Eruka's throat has gone dry. _Idiot, idiot, idiot,_ chants her every thought, but she clenches her fists and refuses to budge.

Without warning, Free picks her up off the ground, holding her in front of his face.

"Hey!" she shouts. "What are you doing? We're almost-!"

His voice cuts through her words, not loud, but firmer than anything she could ever manage to say. "We're going home," he snarls. " _Now_."

Eruka realizes with a jolt that she's never seen Free this angry. His face is red, contorted with rage while his lips pull back to reveal his full set of canine fangs. He _never_ looks at her like that, and she can't understand why he's acting as if he's going to sink his teeth into her neck, but suddenly she's more scared of him than she could be of any meister. Every one of her muscles are ready to transform and run before a scythe blade sprouts out of Free's chest. Eruka gasps, frozen still.

"What are you doing here?" A high, hate-filled voice snaps from behind him. Eruka stares with large eyes at the red-and-black blade in front of her, inches from piercing her neck, until it slides out backwards from Free's woundless skin.

The werewolf's face falls slowly, settling into an eerie calm as he places her back on the ground before he turns around to face their enemy, Eruka cautiously peeking around him. Though Maka Albarn holds her scythe in her hands, there's a less-than-intimidating air about her as she stands there in yellow pajamas. But Eruka can see the cruelty in her green eyes, the thirst for blood in her scowl, and her blade ready to stab through her heart.

"Get out of Death City," she spits, "Or Soul may just get his witch's soul early." Her weapon's human reflection shines on his blade, licking his lips as if Eruka's soul is some sort of delicacy. She subconsciously crosses her hands over her chest as if she can somehow guard her soul better that way.

"We were just leaving," growls Free before he reaches to grab Eruka's arm. She moves away, stepping backward, replacing the horror on her face with what she hopes is a threatening glare. "Eruka," Free hisses through his teeth.

"I'm not-!" Eruka's voice comes out high and quivering, and she stops before her voice cracks further. Clearing her throat, she repeats, "I'm not moving."

Maka strengthens her stance. "Do you have death wish, witch?" she mutters.

Free splutters, "Yeah, do you?" He holds his arms out with a flabbergasted look on his face.

Eruka struggles to hold herself still. "Do you even know who we are?" she wonders, doing her best to sound confident.

Maka nods. "The Wolfman Free, and the witch Eruka Frog," she says with certainty. "The DWMA has files on you. You helped Medusa." She spits the witch's name as if mentioning her is poison.

Eruka frowns. "Don't associate me with her," she mutters. "I hated her as much as you do. But I'm not here to talk about Medusa."

With a flick of her wrist, one of Eruka's tadpole bombs appears in her hand.

"I'm here to finish you."

Maka dodges the first blast, but the green smoke from the impact masks Eruka's actions as she slides back.

"What do you think you're doing?" Free hisses at her as the scythe swipes through the smog.

"Trust me," she says with a quivering, uncertain voice. Jumping away from another attack, she calls, "You'll never catch me like that!"

Maka's eyes narrow, glinting with hatred. With a battle cry, she surges forward, catching Eruka off-guard. The witch barely manages to leap away in time to avoid being sliced in half. She hisses in pain when Soul's blade nicks her side.

"Eruka!" Free yells as drops of red stain her dress. He whips around to glare at Soul and Maka before barreling into them like a battering ram, slamming them into the wall. As he catches Eruka in his sight again, she makes sure to point towards the circle, hoping he understands her intent. Though he rolls his eyes, Free turns back to Maka as she emerges from the debris, coughing.

"Hey!" he shouts, drawing her attention. Maka's hard gaze shoots daggers at him while she spits blood from her mouth. Eruka slinks back slightly, not wanting to continue with her wound sending jolts of pain up her side.

 _That's not it,_ her grating inner voice snaps. _You're just a coward who can't even fight her own battles._

Eruka grimaces but fights the voice down. The taunting words insist on being heard, dwelled on, bringing her down and suffocating her. She needs to ground herself. Push the words away. Focus on the fight.

"You okay?" asks Maka's weapon – Soul, if Eruka remembers right. His words sound tinny as they echo through his metal. Maka springs off the wall and swings him at Free, who simply takes whatever blow he can't dodge.

"I'm fine," she replies to her weapon. "You?"

"Sleepy," he says. "There are better things to do than fight witches before six in the morning. Like sleep. Let's wrap this up quick, okay?"

His curved blade wraps around Free's back and juts through his stomach in a heartbeat, producing a sickening _thud_ that almost has Eruka hurling her dinner onto the ground, but all that escapes her lips is a feeble croak.

"That was the plan," Maka says, whipping Soul loose before delivering a hard enough kick to Free's stomach that Eruka can hear the _whoosh_ of air as the wind's knocked out of him. She tenses as he crashes backwards into empty crates.

"Free!" she shouts. Her hand flies to her mouth immediately after she speaks, but she's too late; she's drawn attention to herself, and Maka turns on her heel to glare her down.

Eruka gulps nervously. Maka raises her scythe, a menacing scowl on her lips, and Eruka knows at that moment that her soul is as good as swallowed.

She takes a step back only to be jarred when a solid wall blocks her escape. Her stomach feels as if it's dropping to her feet. Her heart pounds erratically in her chest. Her hands tremble so violently that she couldn't create a bomb even if she wanted to.

Without warning, a large hand grabs onto Maka's waist and hurls her into the center of the alley. Free pants, air returning to his lungs as he pulls his arm back and straightens up, watching with Eruka as Soul yells at his meister to get up.

Maka moves shakily, rising to her hands and knees from where she fell face-down, one of her hands still dutifully gripping her weapon's shaft. There's scrapes on her cheeks and rips in her pajamas that weren't there before.

"We're not getting anywhere fighting them this way," she grunts, standing to her feet.

The eye on Soul's scythe form narrows slightly. "Maka, you're in no to shape to-!"

"I'll be fine," she retorts. "You know what to do, Soul."

All of Eruka's fear and apprehension falls away the instant Soul and Maka begin to glow. She has to keep herself from grinning from ear to ear giddily.

Maka stands tall despite the blood dripping down her face, seemingly unaware that the circle beneath her feet has begun to reflect the same shade of blue that she's giving off. The form of Soul's blade begins to shift, contorting itself as Maka sweeps him above her head, opening her mouth to cry out.

"GENIE HUNT-!"

Her words cut off suddenly. She freezes as if time itself has stopped. A flash and _crack_ like lightning travels in an instant down from Soul's shaft, to her hands, her arms, down her spine, through her legs and feet to the circle, which emanates an increasingly bright light. The air whirls outside of it, spinning like Eruka's chalk drawing is the eye of a hurricane. Maka crumples, collapsing onto the ground, her eyes rolled back into her head. Soul falls next to her, his human form unconscious and spread across the flagstone.

Eruka laughs in triumph while Free slides up next to her. "What's going on?!" he yells over the roar of the circle. She grins, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards it.

"They did it!" She practically squeals. "Those idiots opened the portal!"

Free stares at it. "We're going _in_ that _thing_?" he shouts. Eruka nods happily. Free grimaces. "This doesn't look safe," he says, barely audible over the noise. Eruka groans.

"What is it with you and safety all of a sudden?" she wonders. "I'm so close, Free! _We're_ so close to fixing this!"

Other lights behind closed windows have flickered on in the buildings around the two. Free looks towards them, frowning.

"I guess it's better than staying here," he mutters. Eruka nods, her smile returning.

"Exactly!" she agrees, pushing through the wind to the circle. She sets her hands down beside Maka's unmoving form, where lie the inscriptions to control the power the meister foolishly gave her. "This rotten timeline needs to be forgotten."

Free sighs. "I meant about the alley," he mumbles before the world around them fades to silent white.


	4. Metamorphosis 4

Eruka sets her hat down next to the circle; she doesn't need anyone recognizing her as a witch. Beside her, Free kneels down on the ground, one arm around his stomach with his other hand over his mouth. She winces at the sight of him.

"Free? Are you okay?" she asks slowly. He shakes his head.

"I feel like I'm going to hurl," he groans from behind his fingers. "Is time travel normally that shaky?"

Eruka sighs and rubs her hand up and down his back once. "Sort of, yes. We should only have to do this one more time, though, when we go back to our present," she murmurs, abruptly stiffening once she realizes what she's doing. Her fingers curl slightly, awkwardly as she pulls her hand back to her side, and her cheeks feel uncomfortably warm.

As she stands and lets her heartbeat slow back down to a rational pace, she casts a glance at Soul and Maka. They remain unconscious, but they're still breathing.

"Free," Eruka says again, looking down at him. "I'm going to go take care of things. If the meister and her weapon wake up, keep them apart from each other."

Free turns his bleary gaze towards the unmoving teens. "Can't I just kill them?" he mutters. Eruka pauses, her arms crossing slightly.

"We're not here to kill," she mumbles, not meeting his eyes. "Besides, they come from a future that's already a mess. Killing them wouldn't make any difference."

 _Coward. You call yourself a witch?_

Eruka grimaces and shuffles her feet uncomfortably at the voice's taunt. Maybe she _is_ a coward, but something about killing Maka and Soul just to be rid of them doesn't sit right with her. An uncomfortable feeling bubbles in her stomach as if she's going to throw up too.

"I'll be back in a little bit," she tells him, casting her Soul Protect. She takes a few steps before she hears Free call after her.

"Eruka! Be safe!"

She turns her head in time to catch a glimpse of a small, gentle smile on his lips before his eyes grow wide and he whips around to deposit the contents of his stomach on the ground. Eruka grimaces, throwing her hand over her eyes.

"Try not to be sick on the circle, please," she whimpers, turning on her heel.

"Got it," she hears Free groan in between coughs. Eruka resists the urge to retch as well as she makes her way out of the alley.

Morning dew wets the cobblestone road and the tufts of grass that peek out between its cracks. The hazy autumn morning sees the occasional school bus or the odd jogger but little else, so Eruka doesn't have to work hard to avoid people. But the DWMA looms above the city's buildings like a macabre mountain, and as Eruka looks up at its skull-covered turrets, she suddenly feels very _mortal_.

She can feel her heart pounding when she places her hand on her chest. Maybe it's the danger of walking into the enemy fortress in broad daylight, or the pressure she's put on herself. This is her chance to change the world, after all. Everything has to be executed perfectly. At this point, it would be all too easy to mess up.

Taking a deep breath, Eruka continues forward. Backing down now isn't an option. The future's close enough that she can almost feel it washing over her like a refreshing stream. Time itself lays before her like a full canvas; the tiniest rip in its fabric will change the entire pattern, and Eruka holds the knife.

Young meisters and weapons begin to walk in line with her as she draws nearer to the school. She notices the many tags on their shirts identifying them, and she smiles a little at the confirmation that she traveled to the right date.

Her Soul Protect keeps her presence safely hidden, and for once she's lucky that she's small enough to pass as a student. Even so, she can't help but feel antsy as she and the throng around her begin their trek up the tall stairs. She doesn't like crowds to begin with, she broods, and this group could very easily _kill_ her if she lets her guard down for even a moment.

If the stairs don't kill her first.

After too many minutes of climbing upward, panting, and wondering if saving the world is worth all this physical exercise, Eruka's boot lands on the summit. Her breath takes so long to catch up with her that she feels like she left it halfway down the staircase.

Distant yelling breaks her out of her thoughts, and a glance at one of the school's spires reminds her that she's running out of time; the boy's already standing there, pointing to the sky, proclaiming his importance to the wind and whoever will hear. Quickly Eruka searches for his other half, panic and hurry rising in her throat.

She almost relaxes when she picks the taller weapon out of the rapidly shrinking crowd, but her nerves won't let her.

"Hey! Are you Tsubaki?" she says, putting on an eager face and skipping up the other girl. Absolute loathing fills her at her own actions – skipping? _Really_? It's almost worth it when violet eyes look at her and away from the boy on the spire. The girl nods once, slowly, and Eruka beams at her. "You're really the shadow weapon! I've heard so much about you!" She quickly grabs Tsubaki's arm, leading her inside, while the meek weapon stares at her as if she's sprouted an extra limb.

"Really?" she stammers. "I didn't think anyone knew about me…"

Eruka scoffs. "Of course I know about you! Lots of weapons know about the Nakatsukasas!"

Tsubaki blushes a little, but Eruka doesn't give her long to think. "Now, you've got to hurry or you'll be late for orientation," she says, shoving Tsubaki down the hall in the direction that she _hopes_ she's supposed to go, but it's a gamble.

If she's honest with herself, the _whole_ plan is a gamble, and there's no guarantee that Black Star won't choose Tsubaki as his weapon later. Still, any alteration in the timeline is bound to produce different results, however small they may be. At least this is a start. If this attempt fails, she'll just go back further and change things then.

She'll do this as many times as it takes to get the future she wants.

With a glance behind her, Eruka sees Black Star jump down from his perch to land on the cobblestone. He's met with empty silence.

* * *

Eruka can't keep the grin off of her face while she walks back to the circle. Her world's almost here, and the sunshine seems a bit brighter.

"Free?" she calls cheerfully, entering the alley again. "Are they awake?"

Free shakes his head. He still sits in the circle – though his face looks a little less green now – with Soul and Maka in front of him. "The girl woke up a little while ago, but I knocked her back down."

Eruka smiles as she steps up to them. "Good. We don't need them making a scene," she says, leaning down to pick up her hat.

Green eyes flash open suddenly in the split second before Maka's hand suddenly lashes out. Eruka lets out a strangled croak as the meister's strong fingers wrap around her neck.

"Eruka!" Free shouts, beginning to move, but Maka shoots him a glare, her pigtails whirling around her face whenever she moves her head.

"Don't move or I'll choke her," she snaps. Free releases a low growl but rolls back onto his haunches, as much hatred in his eyes as there is in Maka's, even as she turns back to Eruka and slowly stands. Eruka has no choice but to rise with her, pulled up by her neck.

"What did you do to us?" she says slowly, a demand for truth in her voice. None of Eruka's cheerfulness remains. Terror's taken over her mind again, and she hopes Maka can't perceive the fear in her soul or feel the tremors racking her body.

"I did nothing," she tries to say forcefully, though her voice wobbles and a weak _ribbit_ follows her words. "You two did it yourselve-ack!" she chokes as Maka's grip tightens.

"What is this?" she snarls, stomping her foot in the circle. "What did we land on?"

Eruka's chest heaves. "It's a kronogram," she gasps. She grabs onto Maka's arm in desperation, but she doesn't budge. "I time-traveled with it. You're in the past now," she says quickly. Maka's scowl worsens, her teeth clenched in rage, her green gaze so intense that Eruka could swear it's burning her skin.

"Hey meister!" Free shouts. They hadn't been paying attention to him, so both Maka's and Eruka's jaws fall open when their eyes fall on him, his claws hovering over Soul's throat. "Let her go," he growls. Maka's hand falls from Eruka's neck as if thrown away from her. Eruka takes a deep breath, rubbing her neck, almost expecting to feel indents from where Maka gripped her skin.

"Never lay a hand on her," Free's voice rumbles threateningly as Maka kneels next to Soul.

Eruka sighs, finally setting her hat on her silver hair. "I guess you didn't do a great job of knocking her out the second time, huh?" she mutters. Free looks hurt for a moment, and Eruka realizes too late that she made a blow to his pride. But the sadness in his expression is wiped away swiftly as he looks back at Maka.

She turns to narrow her eyes at them, cradling Soul's head in her lap. "So we're back in time?" she says with a sting in her voice. At Eruka's nod, she continues, "Why?"

Eruka's relaxing more. Her breathing's slowing, her heart rate's dropping to a reasonable rhythm. "To save the world," she says. Maka huffs.

"Save it? Your kind only ruins everything," she mumbles, as if she knows all there is to know about the world. Eruka hates that attitude. She frowns, her fists clenching at her sides, her slow breathing forgotten.

"Really?" she says. "When your school and your _Death_ slaughter a race you hate simply because we might hurt someone? If you killed everyone dangerous, there'd be no _humans_ left!" she retorts. Maka's scowl returns to her face.

"Your kind is capable of much less than humans," she says, obviously reciting something from a textbook or teacher. "They only look out for themselves and always desire destruction. You're just a _witch_ ," she spits like it's a swear word.

Eruka's clenched fists begin shaking, but not out of fear.

"Not one of us is ever _just a witch_ , Albarn!" she shouts. Like one of her bombs, she explodes in a fury of fire and sound. "Every witch has a name! Every witch has a life outside of magic!" She's screaming now, possibly attracting attention. She doesn't care; ignorant little meisters need to be taught about the real world. "Every witch is a _person_! A person that people like you hunt down to make their weapons stronger, so you can fight _more witches_! That's not self-defense, that's _genocide_!"

"Eruka," Free says calmly, setting his hand on her shoulder. She glances at him, rage still in her eyes, but her rapid breath slows when he shakes his head. "She's not worth it," he says softly.

Eruka casts her sight on Maka again, but the meister's ignoring her, instead holding Soul close. As if sensing eyes on her, she turns to glare at Eruka.

"If he doesn't wake up," she snaps, leaving her threat open. Somehow that makes it even more frightening. Eruka scoffs and tries to hide her fear.

"He will," she says confidently. "Unfortunately. All I did was sap a bit of the energy your Resonance produced. He only fainted from shock, like you. He'll wake up soon." She steps forward onto the circle, gingerly keeping as far as she can from Maka. "He won't die no matter what I change in the past, either. Because of the power you gave to this circle, anyone who interacts with it is preserved and given priority over their alternate futures."

Free blinks owlishly. "I get what you're saying… But why not say it with smaller words? You know, so the meister can understand?" he says. Maka looks as if she wants to stomp her combat boots on his toes. Eruka knows exactly how much Free understood, but a hint of her good mood is returning and she doesn't miss the opportunity to shoot Maka a condescending smirk.

"It means that if you travel in time with the circle I made, you won't fade out of existence even if your past changes. You'll simply replace the other timeline's version of yourselves. Unless, of course," she pauses, staring at Maka with a suddenly blank face, "You die."

She sees Maka stiffen a bit as she hugs Soul closer. Eruka smirks again; it feels good to be the one causing fear and not feeling it.

"If your past self dies, then the circle won't save you. You'll be lost to time," she explains. "No magic of mine can wake the dead."

Free narrows his eyes. "That doesn't sound good," he mutters.

Eruka shrugs when she puts her hands down again. "It doesn't really matter to you; you're immortal. You couldn't die anyway," she says.

The whirlwind kicks up around them as Free sits next to her.

"I'm not worried about _me_ ," he says, his words barely audible above the noise.

The world whirls around them, fading in and out of their sight. Then, for a small moment, there's nothing. A strange, silent, infinite whiteness that feels thick somehow, like milk. But it's gone in an instant, the noise roaring back to life like an engine. Eruka's head still feels like it's going in circles when they finally stop moving.

"Do we have to do that again?" Free croaks out. Eruka winces, clutching her head.

"Hopefully not," she sighs, but there's a hint of triumph in her voice when she proclaims, "This is the new future. The fixed one." She smiles a little as she rises to her feet shakily, gazing at the alley around her.

"It doesn't look much different than before," Free mutters and sniffs the air. "It does smell more like smoke, though."

The first step out of the circle feels like walking into a dream. It's finally happened; she's split apart an important pair from the DWMA. Because of that loss, there's no telling what state Death's army is in. Maybe it's already crumbled, or perhaps it's so fragile that it can be plowed over with a single blow. Anything would be an improvement, really.

Eruka takes a moment to shoot a grin at Maka. "Now, go and have fun in your new timeline. People may react to you in ways you're not used to and refer to memories you don't have since your presence here erased this timeline's version of you. Just try not to tell anyone you're from another time, okay? It might confuse them," she says. Maka's frigid gaze looks cold enough to freeze Death Valley, but Eruka chooses to ignore her. She's essentially useless without her weapon, anyway. "Let's go see the new world," Eruka tells Free, walking from the circle without a glance behind her.

Free hesitates. "Shouldn't we cover up the circle?" he asks, causing Eruka to shake her head.

"There's not really a need. I'm the only one that can operate it, anyway," she explains. She soon hears him follow her, lumbering in her trail with his large, even gait. Her own boots crunch against the dead grass that pokes through the cobblestone's many cracks.

"I still think we should've killed the weapon, at least," he mutters. Eruka sighs as they emerge from the alley to an empty street.

"I already told you why we didn't need to," she replies.

Free slides up next to her, gazing at her with his brown eye. "You're not worried that the meister might try to get revenge on you or something?" he asks, unintentionally slamming Eruka with a wave of worry, which she gulps down like a mouthful of sour milk.

"I'm sure I'll be fine," she squeaks out, turning her attention to the blackened remains of what appears to be an apartment building and the shrapnel surrounding it. Free frowns a little.

" _I'm_ worried for you," he mumbles.

Eruka turns to stare at him. She's not exactly sure what he means by that, and she's about to ask him what he's trying to imply when a harsh noise like a growing howl slices through the air. Free lets out a canine yelp, covering his sensitive ears with his hands, while Eruka notices the glinting megaphones standing erect on the rooftops of crumbling buildings. The sound seems to echo through the very ground and Free crouches, his eyes squeezed shut in pain as the call rises and falls, like…

Eruka freezes. "A siren," she whispers, unable to hear her own words. Even louder than the alarm, a rumble from the sky grows closer. Eruka grabs Free's arm and pulls, trying to yank him from the ground, but he doesn't budge. She screams at him, a useless cry that's drowned out by the sirens and the airships now hovering in the sky; large, grotesque, insect-like contraptions that appear more like a mess of wires and pipes than anything airworthy.

Her heart feels like it's dropped into her stomach. Every vein in her body screams in panic and a terribly _wrong_ feeling crawls all over her skin as if she's drowning in ice water. There's no oxygen left in her lungs to scream with, and it's during that petrifying moment that the hatches in the bottom of the airships fly open, releasing their cargo onto the city.

The world seems to slow. Eruka sees it clearly as it appears to fall in slow motion, its pointed end directed almost exactly at her, a spindly purple spider design painted across its dark metal coat. In a split second, she calculates exactly how much damage the weapon can cause, the size of the blast, how far the shrapnel will spread and at what speed; Eruka knows her bombs.

She has almost no control over her transformation. A miniature puff of smoke envelops her, a mere speck compared to the fallout of the incoming bomb. Her senses are being overridden with pure terror, and her eyes squeeze shut as her small, green body locks up entirely.

The airships, the siren, the whistle of the falling weapon; all falls silent when the bomb hits.


	5. Metamorphosis 5

Eruka's head feels as if it's been thrown in a blender.

The ringing in her ears is enough to drown out all of her senses for a minute, but she notices two things very quickly. First, she's not dead. Second, she's surrounded by the nauseatingly overpowering smell of wet dog.

Her small eyes peel open to see hands wrapped tightly around her; Free's hands, holding her close to his chest while he lays on his side, curled around her like a shield. She knows he's immortal, but she still breathes a sigh of relief when she feels his chest moving with breath.

Squirming, she moves out of Free's grip and paws his face a little with her webbed feet.

"Free?" she murmurs, glancing at his closed eyes. He doesn't stir, instead his mouth stays hanging open, exhaling dog breath in her face, making her gag slightly. "I bought you a toothbrush months ago, you oversized mutt," she mutters as she shifts back to her full size in a puff of pink smoke. She shakes his shoulders, growing increasingly more worried the longer he doesn't move. Her movements become harsher, more erratic, her eyes grow wider, her voice becomes more desperate.

"Free, come on, I'm not joking now. Really, if you got hurt trying to protect me, I wouldn't forgive myself. Ever. Okay, Free?"

She stops when her voice is cracking too much for her to force out any more words. All she manages is a small, feeble _ribbit_.

"It went off over here! Start searching!"

Eruka gasps. Her silver hair whips around her face when she glances behind herself and sees them coming around a corner; uniformed soldiers, each bearing the emblem of Death's mask in the center of their vests. They're probing through the rubble, some with weapons in their hands, and Eruka has no desire to be on the receiving end of their blades.

She ducks behind Free, shoving his shoulders as she whispers harshly in his ear, "Free I swear if you don't get off your tail right now I am buying you a shock collar and feeding you only dog food for a month." Her voice comes in a harsh whisper, strained with effort as she pushes her weight against his back. "Before they see us, _please_."

"We found someone!" They shout, their footsteps growing nearer.

Eruka resists the urge to scream. "Too late," she whimpers instead, frozen in place, shaking with fear.

She crouches down as the soldiers run to them, as if not being able to see them over the bulk of Free's back means that they could no longer see her. She could transform, but they likely have meisters with Soul Perception. Besides, she's not leaving Free.

"You there. Witch."

Eruka tentatively raises her gaze to meet the meister. Like the others, he's clothed all in black, flash bombs and grenades in his belt, a sword in his hands, and who-knows-what-else in the pockets of his vest. The helmet on his head shields his eyes and hair.

She gulps and nods once, unable to speak; her tongue feels like it's been tied in a knot and left to dry in the sun. The meister doesn't move.

"You came here for recruitment and got bombed, huh?"

Eruka blinks. She wouldn't be looking at him this strangely if he had said something as odd as "marry me." She notices his stance then; he's simply standing there, looking relaxed, his sword at his side. He's not wary of her at all.

"Yes," she says slowly, warily. This could be a trap. "Recruitment. But first, do you think you can help out my friend here? The blast knocked him out."

The meister nods, glancing over at his comrade. "Hey, Akane! Bring that ambrosia over here!" He shouts. A ways away, another meister raises his hand and waves, showing that he's heard his friend. The first soldier turns back to Eruka, offering a hand to help her up. Eruka stares at his palm as if he's just offered her a bucket of dirt and nails and said "Here, eat up."

She stands without his help. For the briefest of moments, the meister's lips form a thin line, but he quickly wipes the expression away, leaving Eruka wondering if she really saw his frown.

"Who needs the miracle juice?" Akane asks, jogging up to them. The first soldier sighs.

"It's ambrosia, Akane. 'Miracle juice' sounds like a glorified orange juice brand," he mumbles. Akane shrugs.

"Hey, it is what it is," he says, kneeling next to Free. He tilts the werewolf's head upward, lifting a small vile of thick, golden liquid to his lips. Eruka tenses, suddenly wary that whatever they're feeding him could be poison, but Free's eyes suddenly snap open.

"Eruka!" he shouts abruptly, jerking upright. Akane jumps back and the other meister tightens his grip on his sword, but it's as if Free doesn't see them. "Eruka," he says again, grabbing her shoulder, pulling her close. She lets out a small squeak in surprise. "Are you okay? I grabbed you at the last second, but was I too late? Are you hurt?" There's a panic in his good eye that's foreign to her. Even his magic eye seems to hold a strange hint of concern, as if the possibility of her getting hurt scares him more than anything else they've encountered.

Eruka nods once. "I'm fine," she says, patting his hand awkwardly. The tension falls from Free's shoulders, a sigh escapes his lips, the lines around his eyes recede and relax.

"Now that that's taken care of," the meister says, a bit of impatience in his tone, "there's no time to waste. We should get you to the Academy."

Free's eyes narrow. "You're not taking her anywhere," he growls, but Eruka grips his hand, drawing his attention to her.

"But Free," she says, hoping that he knows her well enough to know when she has a plan, "We need to be recruited, remember?" With her luck, he won't catch on and he'll end up blabbing their whole plan to the meisters.

But either Free finally understands her or he's too confused to form a question, leaving them to be led off towards the school.

The closer they get to the Academy, the more the city around them is littered with results of other bombs. Distant smoke indicates recent explosions. Various crews of meisters and weapons probe the city, searching through rubble and marching on patrol, like an army.

Yet they're not soldiers. At least, somehow they don't _feel_ like soldiers to Eruka, even though they have all the right uniforms and mannerisms. Only upon looking closer does she start seeing the details. Many of them are shorter than her. Some of their proportions are off, as if they're hitting growth spurts. Some even still have acne on their faces.

The pieces fall together like lightning striking the earth; Death's army consists of teenagers. _Children_. Somehow that makes Eruka hate the Reaper even more.

Granted, Death always used children as meisters and weapons in his school. But forming them into an army to fight _that_ enemy, of all things, is a new low.

"We're here," Akane says, pointing not to the staircase leading to the Academy, but a small doorway to the right of it, hidden in the wall. "Most of our operations are underground now," he explains as he opens the door for Eruka. Free has to duck to get inside. "It's just extra protection against the air raids, you know?"

Eruka nods, scanning the room. It seems to be where the soldiers would prepare to go out, as the walls are lined with weapons and uniforms. Doors around the room lead to other areas of the base. Some teams spar together in the corners, while others clean blood from their vests. One cries while she does so.

"New recruits, Kid," the first meister shouts across the room, waving over Death's son, who's observing one of the sparring matches. Eruka cringes when she sees who he brings with him.

Maka looks ready to explode as she walks with Kid, and the murderous gaze she shoots at Eruka is enough for her to feel as if the room's temperature has just dropped twenty degrees. Noticing his friend's discomfort, Kid glances at her.

"Do you know this witch, Maka?" he asks. She nods, never taking her sight off of Eruka's wide eyes. Kid sighs as if he's had to relay his next statement countless times before. "Both of you, in the name of professionalism and for the sake of this war, I'll have to ask you to put any previous grievances with each other aside. For the time being, we're allies in the war against Arachnophobia. Feel free to fight to your soul's content after we've won, but for now…" Kid pauses, sighing again. "At least try to tolerate each other."

Maka sets her jaw. Eruka knows that neither of them have any intention to stay in this timeline, but she nods for now. The forced smile that Kid gives her in reply is painfully obvious.

"Good. And you, Maka?"

Maka glowers at her, her arms crossed over her chest. "I guess," she mutters. But before Kid can say anything else, she adds, "But I need to show her something, out in the city." Kid frowns, opening his mouth to speak before she stops him again. "If she's been harmed in any way when we get back, I'll deserve whatever punishment you give me. Deal?"

Kid places his hand on his chin. His eyes narrow as he watches her closely, and Eruka suspects he's searching both her face and her soul for dishonesty. After a moment, he speaks.

"Fine," he says. "I don't trust either of you with each other, though. If you're not back in an hour I'll send someone to search for you. Besides, you and your companion," he points at Eruka and Free, "Still need to properly register. I want that done before midnight tonight."

Maka nods, straightening her back and saluting him. Kid's own shoulders fall.

"I've asked you not to salute me, Maka," he mumbles. He says nothing else, walking away from them and back into the crowd of soldiers. Eruka watches his back until Maka jabs her finger in her face.

"This is all your fault," she hisses so that no one else can hear. Eruka does her best to glare at her.

"You think I don't get that?" she snaps back, slapping her hand away. "I want as much as you do to get back to the circle and fix all this. That's why you asked to go with me, right?"

Maka gives her a curt nod. "As soon as I get Soul over here, we're all going to go back to your circle, and you're going to sort this whole mess out. Is that clear?"

"You don't tell her what to do," Free snarls, finally speaking up, but Eruka silences him with a glance. She turns back to Maka, meeting her gaze dead on.

"Right."

* * *

 _You_ _failed_ , the voice seems to sing. It hasn't stopped since they left the base, away from the noise of Death's army. As much as she hates those nagging thoughts controlling her mind like the buttons on a remote, she knows they're right. Her plan failed and now she's stuck in a war zone, her life is in danger, and she could fail again.

"So what happened while I was out?" Free asks, breaking the awkward silence stretching between their group. Soul and Maka haven't said anything to them, exchanging only the occasional hushed whisper.

"Soldiers came," Eruka explains monotonously. "Turns out they wanted to recruit me, not kill me, so obviously there's some peace between the witches and Death's forces these days."

Free smiles. "Well, that's good. That's what you wanted, right?"

Eruka watches the ground beneath her feet, skirting around piles of rubble and stepping on burn marks. "Not really," she says. "The peace is obviously fragile. Once this war with Arachnophobia's over, they'll go back to being enemies."

Free's smile falls. "Oh," he says quietly. Eruka speaks up again, not wanting to go back to silence.

"If I had to guess, I'd say the world's current situation means Asura is dead. I can't feel his madness wavelength, anyway. Arachne's still fighting, though, and the DWMA has become more militant to combat her. Also," she shudders, "Medusa could still be alive. I don't want to live in _any_ timeline where there's a possibility that she's even _twitching_."

"There's one thing we can agree on," Maka adds in a mutter.

"Which is why I'm going to try again," Eruka says as they step into the alleyway where the circle lies on the ground, undamaged save for the small amount of pebbles scattered across its surface. Maka's step falters.

"… You said you were going to fix this," she says slowly. Eruka doesn't look at her.

"Of course," she says. "I'll fix it _my_ way. I'm still trying to get that future I want, Maka."

She doesn't notice the scythe whizzing towards her neck until Free suddenly steps behind her. Eruka jumps in fright when the blade becomes lodged in Free's chest.

"Try that again and you're as good as dead," Free snarls at Maka. Eruka's shaking a little, but she clears her throat.

"What Free's trying to say is," she begins, glancing at Maka. She wonders if the scowl across the meister's face will become permanent if she wears it any longer. "I'm your ticket home. Kill me, and you'll be stuck in whatever time or place we happen to find ourselves in."

"Or we could just leave them on purpose," Free mutters, pulling Soul out of his chest and dropping him to the ground with a resounding _clang_.

Eruka sighs she kneels down on the circle again. "There's no telling what the repercussions will be if we leave them in the past," she says. "Besides, I'm not sure how long this circle will hold a charge. We might need them to power it back up again if we do this for a while."

Soul resumes his human form in a burst of blue light. "No way I'm charging up your little magic trick again," he mutters.

The circle whirls to life when Eruka places her hands on it. "You'll do whatever I tell you to do," she shoots back. If either Soul or Maka protests, they're drowned out by the magic's noise.

* * *

Neither time nor space is a problem for Eruka's circle; it's a feat of genius, if she says so herself. But even her own ingenuity can't make her smile as she stands alone, dialing a payphone under a lamppost.

She should be confident, but of course even using the phone makes her anxious. It's not her fault that witches don't often use these kinds of devices. She rehearses her line over and over in her head: _The warehouse at 232 Monarch Street. The warehouse at 232 Monarch Street._ Without studying the past beforehand, she would have no idea where her targets were. Her efforts are slowly becoming worth it.

 _Don't mess this up like you did last time_ , the voice taunts. Eruka wants to scream for it to shut up before she hears that her call's gone through.

"Hello, NYPD?" she says into the receiver, twirling her finger around the phone's cord to keep her hands busy. "I have some information for you. You've heard of the Thompson sisters, correct?"

It's two weeks before Death the Kid's mission to New York. Lord Death's son will never find his oh-so-perfect weapons.


	6. Metamorphosis 6

Understandably, Maka and Soul are as happy with Eruka as she would've been if someone decided to lob her legs off.

Free grabs them around their waists, pinning their hands to their sides while holding them each under his arms like footballs, keeping them at bay long enough for Eruka to land everyone back in the present. That didn't stop the meister and her weapon from hurling insults at her the entire time, but thankfully the noise of the portal drowns out their voices for most of the trip.

Eruka frowns at Free as the portal powers down. "Honestly, Free, if your motion sickness is that bad, put them down before you throw up on them," she mutters, watching Free stagger slightly, his dizzy eyes unfocused.

"Can we wait a little before the next trip?" he pleads, dropping Soul and Maka straight onto the ground. Soul picks his head up with a fierce glare at Eruka, while Maka rubs dirt off her hands and coughs at the sudden impact to her chest. Eruka pointedly ignores them while picking herself up.

"We shouldn't have to do it again," she says, glancing around herself. Between the buildings that surround them, a thin streak of sky peeks through, dyed red with the sunset. At least everything around her seems intact. There's no crumbling buildings or sirens atop the roofs, and the air doesn't smell of smoke.

"I'm going to scout around." She straightens her hat so it sits perfectly on her head.

Leaning on a wall for support, Free looks up at her. Eruka wonders for a moment how the legendary immortal wolfman can be weakened by something as simple as motion sickness.

"I'm going with you," he says. Eruka raises one eyebrow confusedly.

"Free, you can barely stand-!"

"I'll be fine," he barks, almost glaring at her. Eruka's mouth snaps shut. "If there's a possibility that you'll get hurt again, then I'm going to be there to protect you. No buts."

Eruka watches him closely. He's looking paler than normal and his breathing's slightly heavy, but there's determination in his eyes that says he won't take no for an answer. So she doesn't say anything, choosing to simply head down the alley towards the street.

"I realized something, back in the last timeline," Free murmurs behind her. Eruka casts another glance at him as she walks, but he doesn't meet her gaze this time. "When that bomb hit, I was…" he pauses, rubbing the back of his neck. "Scared. For the first time in centuries."

Eruka shrugs, turning back to the path ahead of her. "That's natural. That bomb even knocked _you_ out; I'd say that's a good reason to be scared."

Free heaves a sigh. "That's not it," he mumbles, stumbling slowly over his words. "I was scared for… I mean, Eruka, you're… You're mortal."

Eruka huffs slightly, crossing her arms over her chest. "I am not," she snaps. "I prefer the word _amortal_." It's a touchy subject. Witches can die, yes, but they can halt their aging at will. They're not exactly immortal, but they're not mortal either, so to call a witch "mortal" is an ignorant insult.

Apparently remembering this, Free curses under his breath. "I didn't mean it that way," he says quickly. "What I meant to say is, well, you can _die_."

Eruka tenses slightly. _What else is new?_ she thinks to herself, but doesn't say it. "I'm glad you figured that out," she mutters.

Free groans, the kind of sound Eruka knowns means _great, I messed up AGAIN_. "No, I already knew that. Look, what I mean to say is that I realized that I really, really don't want you to die. Really."

Eruka's footsteps slow as Free's stop entirely, the sound of his large feet no longer echoing off the sides of the alley.

"What I'm trying to say is… You're important me, Eruka," he murmurs.

She turns around, wanting to see his eyes and whatever emotion he has written across his rough face, but Free's fanged jaws clamp around her neck as soon as she moves.

A strangled gasp comes from Eruka's mouth. Her now wide and panicked eyes look down at Free's face, snarling and twisted. She can only see his magic eye, which has been wiped of its red symbol and replaced with the insignia of three slanted eyes.

The nightmarish vision's gone as quickly as it started. Free and Eruka stand paces apart, facing each other in the alley, chests heaving.

"Did you see that?" Free asks, voice raspy. Eruka can only nod. "That wasn't real, was it?"

Eruka gulps. "No, it's-!" Her voice dies in her throat when the ground shifts suddenly beneath her. As if the street's transformed into a swamp's thick and slippery mire, she begins sinking rapidly. Free shouts her name, reaching for her hand as Eruka all but plummets into the ground that's now up to her neck. She grasps his fingers with a sob, her mouth flooded with the oozing ground as they're both swallowed into the earth.

Eruka tries to take deep breaths, but her lungs have sped up beyond her control. The ground sits stagnant beneath her feet, unmoving, just as it's always been, but the vivid delusion makes her wary of the very stones she's standing on.

She knows it's a trick. But the fear still grabs her like a hand grasping onto her ankle, dragging her down. The air around her is toxic; she can feel it seeping into her soul, seizing control of her.

Free's gone from her mind. She turns and runs, out of the alley and into the open air. Panting, her paranoid eyes dart around. The entire sky's dyed red as if the clouds themselves are soaked with blood. The streets sit empty, and the buildings mostly undamaged if not for the broken glass in many storefront windows – telltale signs of riots, while fear itself seems to be seeping from every brick.

Her knees feel weak and she crumples, arms wrapped around herself, while Medusa's likeness suddenly appears in every one of the thousands of glass shards, laughing at her.

Eruka covers her ears and squeezes her eyes shut. Terror overwhelms her, ripping a mangled scream out of her lips before she realizes where the sound's coming from.

Less of a thought, more of a feeling, glints through her panic. It's like someone else is in her soul, dictating her desires and molding her mind. She's sick and tired of this fear, isn't she? And she _knows_ how to never feel it again.

Her soul feels as if it's being tugged and pulled out of her grip. She clings to it for a moment, guarding it, until the voice cuts through her thoughts.

 _Why are you holding on?_

For a split second, she stops resisting to ask herself that question. Why is she fighting it, again?

That single moment of hesitation is enough to break her hold. All the fear washes out of her body like poison running off her skin. Her shoulders begin shaking with laughter before her giggling even exits her mouth.

Her hands fall from her ears, instead wrapping around herself as she rocks back and forth, a grin stretching across her lips. It feels _so wonderful_ to be without fear, and her laughter swells until it echoes off every wall around her. Soon it seems as if the whole city's laughing with her, sharing her joy, reveling in the madness.

She stands shakily, her laughter fading into small, scattered chortles as she skips slightly. She has no hindrance anymore; not worrying about consequences allows her free range of the world. This is what she wanted, isn't it? To not have to be afraid anymore. _This_ is the perfect world she was striving for.

The next street she staggers onto is even more haggard than the first one, with trash cans turned over, trees uprooted, and stray corpses laying on the pavement, as if someone went wild and killed anyone they happened to run past. With a shrug, Eruka guesses that is how it goes in this new world. People are freed from fear under the pulse of madness ricocheting through the atmosphere, and they liberate themselves with bloodshed. Sounds reasonable.

She saunters up to one such victim, a woman with dark hair lying on the ground. She doesn't look as if she's been dead for long, as her body's still intact, but her eyes are vacant and blood, dried into a muddy brown, coats her shirt. Eruka clicks her tongue disapprovingly.

"That's a shame," she sighs, but she still smirks giddily, nudging her with her boot. "You won't live to see any more of my world."

A sudden, large crash sounds behind her. Unfazed, Eruka turns around nonchalantly aside from the snigger on her lips.

Her joy dies abruptly. Running on all fours, turning the corner onto the street, a large, humanoid wolf gives a roar-like snarl. Foam drips from his massive jaws, its clawed hands flex and tear at the cobblestone, and its blank eyes stare dead ahead.

Something about the beast injects into Eruka's soul like a needle, as if she's supposed to be feeling _something_ other than lightheaded apathy. She stands still and the wolf doesn't seem to see her, yet it pauses to sniff the air like a hound, rising up on two legs.

Another needle pricks at her madness, and the more she watches the wolf the more she feels like she's being stung by a swarm of bees. She laughs again, a nervous chuckle, as if trying to fight against the sanity and empathy that keep jabbing at her.

At the sound, the wolf's head whips in Eruka's direction and its lips pull back in a snarl. His eyes seem to bore through her, hitting straight to her soul, breaking into the insanity she's built up as shelter.

She blinks as if clearing dust from her eyes. "… Free?"

He rams into her like a train, throwing her through an empty store window. Thankfully there's no glass left in the sill, but the wind's knocked out of her and she slams right into a rack of tabloids, gasping for breath. She's afraid again, her heart's hammering in her chest like an entire room of carpenters pounding in nails, and she hears Free's thundering gait coming after her.

Panicked, she crawls and ducks under the counters where the cash registers sit broken and looted. She can hear Free growl as he steps inside, gray nose sniffing, foul breath coming out in heavy pants. With a gulp, she glances around the side of the counter to see him. He looks so… _animalistic_ that Eruka almost doesn't recognize him even when she's sane.

Her mind races, trying to come up with a plan while Free's distracted himself with a package of doughnuts left in one of the isles. They need to go back to the circle so she can fix this – _again_ , she sighs – but she doesn't think he'll come willingly. So he'll have to be subdued somehow. Knocking him out would be difficult, but doable and preferable, if she can survive that long. She only just learned in the last timeline that bombs could hit him hard enough to render him unconscious. Luckily, she has an unlimited supply of those.

Standing slowly, trying to not make a sound, she faces Free. His back is to her as he stands on his rear legs and knocks over a shelf of cheese crackers with a grunt. Eruka raises her hand silently, a tadpole-shaped bomb appearing in her palm. She's shaking like a flag in a hurricane, but she still pitches the bomb over her head, sending it hurtling towards Free.

Her aim's off. The bomb arches over him and explodes against the wall in a burst of green powder.

Free roars, wiping the dust from his eyes while Eruka gasps. He whips around, snarling at her, the dark fur around his face tinged with green. She barely has time to blink before he charges, slamming her through the store window once again and out onto the street. She gasps, trying in vain to breathe, while her lungs feel crushed and crumpled like paper.

She struggles to her feet as Free snarls, setting his hands on the large windowsill. She stares into his dull but wild eyes, devoid of humanity and filled with wrath. He doesn't break the contact, keeping her gaze, not seeming to notice when she lifts her arm again and throws another bomb.

Free growls and tries to dodge, but the bomb hits his side. Eruka struggles to stand as he leaps out of the window towards her, livid bloodthirst in the harsh, guttural snarl he pushes between his teeth.

His large hands slam into her shoulders, knocking her back to the ground and pinning her there. Eruka shrieks in pain and terror. Free roars in her face, throwing spittle into her hair, allowing her to see every glistening fang lining his enormous jaws.

She doesn't transform; she doesn't have much control over magic that complicated while fear runs wild through her head, and with Free's mouth open over her, she can plainly see just how easily her frog form could be swallowed down his throat. She's essentially paralyzed, terrified of death but just as scared of doing anything to try and prevent it.

But more is at stake than her own life, she realizes suddenly. This is about Free, and she can't save him if he kills her.

Eruka moves without thinking. First she sets her hand on his arm, triggering an explosion that causes him to jerk his hand away, leaving her own arm free to whirl towards his head.

There's a small moment of calm when her palm touches his forehead, as if the world and the noise of the madness have gone silent. His fur feels soft beneath her fingers.

Her bomb explodes directly between his eyes and the air fills with smoke. Eruka coughs, waving the dust away from her face. Free lies on the opposite side of the street, thrown back from the blast, his eyes closed as his chest slowly rises and falls with breath.

* * *

Getting Free's limp, furry bulk back to the circle soon proves to be almost as hard as taking him down in the first place. After a few painful minutes of trying to drag him – only for Eruka to realize that he's as heavy as the weight of her problems – she settles for sliding him onto Tadpole Jackson's back, who merely floats behind her with a twitching grin, as if mere familiars could be affected by the madness in the air.

She's reminded just how bad that madness is when she steps back into the alley. The first thing she lays eyes on is the dark portion of Soul's blade and Maka's coat dripping with black blood, right after she hears Maka's wild, giggling laughter. All of Eruka's own blood drains from her face.

Maka's green eyes whip around, setting on Eruka. She grins and sways from side to side.

"Wanna see my blood, witch?" she asks, singsongy. "I wanna see _yours_. I wanna put it all over the place! It'll be _so_ pretty, right Soul?"

Soul's upper half emerges from his blade, his arm reaching out to Eruka, causing her to leap back in panic. Drool drips from his lips as he licks them.

"I don't care." His voice is low, groaning, desperate. "Just feed me her soul."

Maka winks at him, as if the murderous things they're saying are just part of some childlike game. "Will do!" She beams.

Eruka prays to whatever god that hasn't forsaken her that Maka isn't as skilled or attentive in battle when she's mad. Either her prayers are answered or she's lucky, because the bomb she throws in a panic hits Maka square in the chest, sending her flying into the wall. The meister slumps down, Soul clattering to the ground. He changes his form and stands, growling at her like a rabid animal.

Fear grips Eruka's chest like cold, thin air. She knows there's a way to get it to let go of her; she feels the answer around her, ready to dive into her soul.

But she doesn't let it in. She won't use madness in this fight and risk giving herself up to its tempting scent. Pushing her fear out of the way so she can move, yet still gripping it like a shield, she charges.

* * *

She's tired. So tired.

Blood drips from a deep wound on her leg, and its metallic taste lingers in her mouth from a cut on her lip. She had hoped she'd never have to taste it again.

She stands over the wreckage of the piano, wooden shards littering the floor at her feet. Ivory keys hang by threads from its shattered frame, its legs lay sprawled out, and a few stray pegs are stuck in the ceiling above.

A single explosion decimated it. For an artifact of such importance in the lives of two students, it fell terribly quickly. Eruka can only hope it's enough. She just wants this to end.

 _You could just give up_ , the voice says. Eruka's fists clench at her sides.

"Shut UP!" she screams at her thoughts. No one else is around to hear. Not even one young weapon, wanting to bare his soul to his potential meister.

He'll never get the chance now.


	7. Metamorphosis 7

Eruka doesn't leave the edge of the circle until Free wakes up. She can't feel Asura's influence in the air, nor does she see sirens atop the buildings. There's a hint of madness prodding her, but the sensation feels more like someone constantly poking her rather than stabbing her soul, and the force is weak enough that she can resist it easily. So far, she doesn't have any qualms with this future.

But she's not holding her breath.

Maka and Soul wake up before Free does. Eruka has to explain to them everything that happened while Soul's blade hovers under her neck, from the black blood to how she kept them from meeting yet they're still partners.

"I should have told you enough by now," she grumbles, eying Soul with more annoyance than fear. "The circle preserves the individual pasts of those that interact with it, but it lets me erase the big picture. You're the only ones that remember your pasts, and this world will remember it differently."

Maka's eyes narrow, and she moves Soul closer to Eruka's jugular. "Fix it _now_ ," she demands. Eruka laughs humorlessly.

"We've been over this too. Your threats are useless; if you kill me, you won't be able to get back to your own timeline at all. A dead witch can't change her mind," she reminds them coolly.

For some reason, Maka feels the need to swipe the sharp point of her scythe across Eruka's cheek before pulling Soul to her side. Eruka gasps in pain, her hand flying to the wound, feeling the warm blood dribble down her chin like crimson tears.

"If there's anything even slightly wrong with this future," Maka snaps as Soul shifts back into a human at her side, " _We'll_ change your mind for you."

Eruka glares at them. Before Medusa, she had done her best to avoid meisters and their weapons, but she had heard rumors. They're killers that only desire destruction, said other witches. They'll take your soul for sport. They won't hesitate to destroy you if they find you, but don't fear them. Fear is their ultimate weapon. Don't give in to it. So fight for your life, and kill them before they kill you, but never let on that you fear them.

So far, everything she had heard about them had proven true. They threatened her every chance they got. They only wanted her soul to make Soul stronger. They were the reason she was going through all this trouble.

She stands hesitantly, the wound on her leg threatening to send her toppling back onto the pavement. The pain reminds her why she keeps going. This is why she keeps fighting, trying to correct the world so that no witch ever has to feel the sting of a meister's blade against their flesh ever again.

 _But has that worked before?_ the voice wonders tauntingly. Eruka frowns. Now that she thinks about it, the future's become worse every time she tried to eliminate meisters and weapons. She feels that all-too-familiar doubt settling into her stomach like a stone, causing a grimace to form on her lips. Is everything she's done useless?

She hears Free stir behind her, breaking through her thoughts. He lets out a growl and rubs his head as she turns to look at him.

"What did I drink last night?" he groans while sitting up. Puzzled, Eruka stares at him.

"I don't think you drank anything," she says. Free mutters a slurred curse between his teeth.

"Feels like I'm hungover," he mutters, stretching his grey, furry body over the entire circle with a long grunt. Eruka looks towards the ground.

"There was an issue with the last timeline," she murmurs. "You went mad. That's why you're still a wolf."

Free falls suddenly silent. "I… Did what?"

Eruka's shoulders bunch up. "It doesn't matter now," she says, keeping her gaze away from him. He sniffs loudly.

"I smell blood," he announces softly, a hint of fear in his voice. Eruka finds herself suddenly grabbed by the shoulder and spun around to face him. He's back to his humanoid form now as he stares into her face, his mouth hanging slightly open.

"You're bleeding," he mutters, almost accusingly, as if he's criticizing her for not somehow preventing her wounds. His thumb runs along her cheek, wiping off the blood and freezing Eruka to the spot as if he's just struck her with his ice. Yet the palm of his hand that he places beneath her chin has a soothing warmth to it, and Eruka has to keep herself from leaning into his touch, if just to revel in the comfort his hands provide for a little bit longer.

" _Ahem_ ," Maka snaps, tapping her foot. "Some of us want to get this over with."

Free shoots her a glare. "Eruka's _hurt_ ," he snaps, a slight snarl in his voice. With a small sigh, Eruka pulls his hands off of her.

"It's okay, Free. I'll be alright," she says as she stands. Free turns back to her, looking like he's about to say something untrue like "you should rest" or "I won't let you" or "you're fragile," but Eruka can almost see the unspoken plea die on his lips.

"… Okay," he mumbles, putting a hand on his knee as he rises to his feet. He only takes two steps forward before a giant throwing star slices through the air where he had just stood less than a second ago.

"Freeze, intruders!" a loud voice shouts from atop a building to their left. "We have you surrounded! Don't fight back and your deaths will be quick!"

Soul stiffens. "I know that voice," he breathes. Beside him, Maka grabs his arm with wide eyes.

"Black Star, it's us!" she shouts. "It's Maka and Soul!"

Eruka stares up as the ninja looks down at them from the roof, his arms crossed over his chest. "Who?" he says, tilting his head. "I've never heard of you before!"

"They're the ones Her Ladyship has been looking for!" calls another voice from the opposite wall. Maka grips Soul's arm tighter.

"Liz?" she whimpers. Eruka's beginning to feel queasy – probably from both blood loss and fear – when Free sets his hand on her shoulder once again and steadies her. She's able to see the realization dawn on Black Star's face even from that distance.

"So we bring them alive," he says slowly. "What about the others?"

Free growls at him. "You won't dare hurt us," he warns. "If you touch this witch at all I'll freeze you so much that you won't thaw until the sun burns up!"

"They're magic-users!" a third voice declares. "We need to take them all to Her Ladyship!"

Black Star lets out a groan, obviously disappointed that he doesn't get to kill anything today, and jumps down in front of them. He's quickly followed by other meisters and weapons, while terrified recognition sinks deeper into Maka's eyes.

"Ox? Kim? Kilik? What are you all doing?" she whimpers.

The small army doesn't reply. Their eyes are pale, empty, and every motion seems to jerk their body. Black Star walks right up to Eruka, looking into her frightened eyes.

"Her Ladyship sees through our eyes and hears through our ears," he whispers. "You'll respect her and obey her orders. If you don't, she'll see, and she'll smite you."

Free steps protectively between them, his voice a low growl. "And I told you not to touch her," he says menacingly. Shaking, Eruka puts a hand on his.

"Free?" she squeaks. "Let's just do what they say, okay? We're outnumbered."

He looks down at her, instantly straightening his back, softening his eyes, and unclenching his fists as if he doesn't want to scare her. She can see a million thoughts run through his mind and across his face, finally settling on quiet resignation. "If I don't fight back," he says much more gently than he spoke a moment ago, "Will you be less scared?"

Her eyes avert down to the students surrounding them. They're all armed, clutching weapons in their pale hands. Even Black Star's picked Tsubaki off of the ground. Fighting them would be useless; she'd barely prepare her bombs before she'd be killed like a bug under their shoe. At least if she and Free agree to go with them then she'll have a chance to assess their situation and come up with a plan. With a glance at Free, she nods.

He doesn't protest. "Take us to Her Ladyship," he says to the students, who quickly and wordlessly begin walking, pushing the group along.

Eruka follows distractedly, trying to form a plan of escape, when she steps on something thick and slippery. It hisses at her and she shrieks, jumping back, but she's shoved along by the students.

"Don't step on the snakes," Black Star says from the head of the group. "They're sacred to Her Ladyship."

Eruka gasps, biting her nails. Snakes of all kinds litter the streets like they've replaced every human in the city; slithering in and out of open doors, hanging down from gutters, some even swallowing each other whole.

She turns her face away swiftly, shaking, eyes wide. Her leg's stopped bleeding, but she's beginning to limp. Without even looking at her, Free wraps his arm around her shoulder, supporting and soothing her slightly.

"Hang in there. I'm sure it won't be much longer," he murmurs. Eruka can only nod feebly as she keeps her eyes on the ground. Snakes around their feet flick their tongues at the newcomers, but thankfully she can't see much aside from them.

Abruptly, Free stops. "We're not climbing that," he says, prompting Eruka to look up. The steps leading up to the DWMA rise in front of them. All they can see of the building above are the giant candles that protrude from the windows, which have been snuffed out.

"You are," Black Star says. "Her Ladyship is waiting at the top."

Free stands his ground, even as the others push on him from behind. "Eruka can't climb that," he reiterates. "Her leg's hurt."

Black Star frowns. "She'll get up there. Figure it out. Her Ladyship doesn't like waiting."

Soul bares his fangs at his former friend. "Why don't you say her name already?!" he says. Eruka's too distracted by him to notice Free's movements, so she yelps with surprise when he scoops her into his arms. He smiles once at her reassuringly before moving up the stairs with her held tightly to his chest. Clinging to his neck, Eruka receives some comfort from his touch as they grow ever nearer to the Academy.

The DWMA's condition strikes them once they reach the top. The formerly intimidating building is in shambles, crumbling like a mere sneeze would blow it away into dust. Rooves have fallen in, entire towers have either collapsed or tilt dangerously to the side, and pieces of the three spikes from above the entryway lay littered about the terrace.

Without stopping, the group continues into the decrepit school. Gray, cloud-covered sunlight sheds through the holes in the ceiling and blood, dried brown, is occasionally splattered across the walls and floor. The snakes have grown even more numerous, and Free has to tip-toe around the reptiles to keep from stepping on them.

Not a word is spoken as they near a large, red door. Soul frowns. "This is the death room," he says out loud. Black Star's fingers twitch.

"It hasn't been called that in years," he says matter-of-factly, pushing open the door. The hallway of guillotines lies in various states of disarray, with some blades fallen to the ground and others toppled over entirely. Snakes slither amongst the red, faded splinters, and the formerly constant blue sky of the room is an ominous red littered with gray clouds and a lone vulture circling high above them.

"Maka, what's wrong?!"

Eruka looks down to see Maka clutching her head, shaking, stopped in her path with Soul by her side. Liz shoves their shoulders.

"Keep moving!" she shouts, but Soul pushes her back.

"That soul," Maka whispers, and only when Eruka hears her voice does she realize that Maka isn't trembling with fear. "She's stronger than before," she spits, wild rage in her voice.

"You wouldn't have been able to sense her presence from outside," Ox mutters, "because Lord Death put a barrier around the room. I'm not surprised that Her Ladyship's awe-inspiring soul surprised you with its power."

Maka whips around, slamming her fist into Ox's face before anyone can stop her. Black Star and Liz quickly grab her arms and pull her back while Ox picks himself off the ground, wiping black blood from his nose.

"I'm not _amazed_ by _anything_ here!" Maka screams. "Why are you all kissing up to _her_?! What's wrong with you?!"

"Oh, they're not doing it by their own free will, believe me. They required a gross excess of snakes implanted in their bodies before they'd even consider obeying their queen."

Eruka's heart seems to stop. She can even feel Free tensing up, gripping her tighter in his arms. The dead-eyed students lower their heads.

"Her ladyship speaks," they murmur in disturbing unison.

"Why have you come to my chamber?" their leader speaks, her voice echoing through the room.

Black Star speaks for the group. "We bring four outsiders," he says. "Two magic-users, and the meister and weapon you've been searching for."

The voice at the end of the hall is silent for a moment, but slowly, her demented laughter rises through the room until it seems to resonate from every fallen guillotine, every cloud. Eruka would rather go deaf than have to listen to that terrifying noise for another moment. She covers her ears and squeezes her eyes closed as if she can wish herself away from the future she's brought upon herself.

"You may go, my soldiers," says Her Highness as her laughter dies down, "but leave the four you brought. I wish to see them for myself."

Eruka opens her eyes just as Black Star nods. "As you wish," he says with the others, walking out with steps in sync. Free moves to follow, to try and slink out with them, but the snakes bunch up before his feet and hiss, snapping at his ankles.

"I'll have none of that," Her Highness says as the doors close. "Now come to me."

The snakes cluster like a wave, pushing them onward. Maka's fists tremble, while Soul sets his hands on her shoulders.

Death's platform has been done away with. In its place sits a giant stone snake, coiled towards the ceiling. Perching on its nose as if it's her throne, her feet hanging off the edge and kicking almost childishly, the witch grins down at them with a smile like glinting ice.

"What brings you to my kingdom, travelers?" Medusa purrs.


	8. Metamorphosis 8

Eruka was never supposed to see her again. She had seen her die, her soul obliterated. Her body was _gone_ in every meaning of the word.

Yet now, like in so many of her nightmares, Medusa gazes down on Eruka with a gleam in her eyes, like a hawk that's spotted a tasty-looking frog.

"Let's see," Medusa says slowly, pointing at them. "Eruka the Frog Witch and the Man with the Magic Eye. When did you get out of prison?"

Free sets Eruka down slowly, never looking away from Medusa. "Uh… Over two years ago," he half-lies. "Eruka helped me."

Medusa's smile begins to fade. "Really? I thought I would've heard about something like that," she says. Eruka's eyes widen. Her fingers begin twitching and her stomach flips uncomfortably; something in Medusa's tone doesn't sit right with her.

"And you," Medusa continues, now pointing at Soul and Maka. "The bane of my rule. You've been fighting me for months now and you suddenly let yourself get taken in? I would have expected more from you."

Eruka stares at her, her sick feeling forgotten for a moment. "Why is that?" She chooses her words carefully, but Medusa turns her gaze on her and immediately Eruka feels miniscule.

"I suppose it's because I killed their partners," she shrugs with a yawn. "They teamed up and have been trying to knock me off my throne for a while now."

Eruka's heart sinks. Even after she prevented their first meeting, Maka and Soul still became partners. She failed again.

"No matter, I suppose," Medusa continues, drawing Eruka's attention back to her. A twisted grin slides across her face again as her pupils become slits. "You're here. That's what's important."

"Soul!" Maka says firmly, aware of the witch's dangerous look. Soul transforms wordlessly, shifting into a scythe in her hands.

Medusa points a single finger to the sky, allowing one small snake-like bolt to fire from her hand to the vulture in the sky above. The bird screeches when it's hit, its wings useless as it falls down, down to Medusa, where it lands with an ugly _thud_ behind her on her stone snake.

Only at that distance can Eruka see that it's no vulture.

"Kishin?" Medusa speaks sweetly, petting the creature's ragged, oozing black feathers. "I've got some new souls for you."

At the word "souls," the kishin picks their head up. Their three eyes are blank, devoid of pupils or irises, and they're even skinnier than they were the last time Eruka saw them, their ribs clearly visible beneath their dark dress. Four spindly arms protrude from their shoulders, each holding a long black sword.

"Crona?" Maka breathes, her own eyes wide.

Crona whips around, pinning their blank gaze on her. They let out another screech, filling the air with a grating sound that causes Eruka to cover her ears, right before they fly straight at Maka and Soul, knocking them from the platform and out of sight. Crona's scream ends, but Maka's begins.

"Leave them."

A high-pitched croak jumps out of Eruka's throat when she notices Medusa next to her.

"You're worth keeping alive," Medusa says with a smile, as if she's just stated something lighthearted and simple, like a comment on the weather. She turns, striding down the platform's stairs and into the field below. Eruka and Free follow unquestioningly, as if their free will has been forgotten once again in her presence.

"I'm sure you both have heard of how I rose to power," Medusa says idly as she walks ahead of them. Eruka shoots Free a panicked glance, but he merely shrugs. Eruka's not too scared that she can't roll her eyes at him.

Medusa says nothing for a moment, but her shoulders seem to move in a silent chuckle. "I'll refresh your memory," she says pleasantly. "After I turned Crona into a kishin, it was only a matter of time before I destroyed Death and his followers. Of course, I created a spell that sped up the process a bit."

Medusa's voice seems to send ice cubes down Eruka's back. All she can do is nod as they walk into an area of the plain room where the cross-shaped headstones have all been cleared away, leaving room for an array of stone statues.

"I call this my garden," Medusa says as she strides up to a smaller statue. Its stone back is to them, but it appears to be a young teen on his knees. "You recall my namesake, correct?" Medusa says, placing her hand on the figure's head. Eruka nods.

"You're named after Medusa, a powerful kishin egg," she speaks, her voice wavering. "Anyone who looked at her face directly would be turned to…" her voice cracks, horrifying realization running down her skin like scorpions' skittering legs. When she speaks again, her words come in a squeaky whisper. "To stone."

Medusa grins. "Exactly," she purrs, stepping away from the statue, holding her hand towards it invitingly. "Have a look."

Eruka's hands shake and sweat, but she obeys. She walks slowly around the stone boy until she can stare into his agonized face, empty eyes pleading, mouth open in a silent, eternal scream.

"It was rather satisfying to see Lord Death's own son in such a state," Medusa says, running her fingers along one of the stripes in the boy's rocky hair. "He was begging for the lives of his weapon partners. I spared them; he should be happy." Her lips cock in another grin, and Eruka feels as if Medusa knows exactly why Death the Kid wasn't happy in his final moments.

"Eruka," Free speaks quietly, drawing her attention to him. He stands surrounded by other statues, weapons, meisters, and witches alike. Everyone who opposed Medusa has either been turned into stone or her personal slaves. Even Free seems uneasy, shifting back and forth on his feet.

"Unfortunately, I don't have Lord Death's statue here," Medusa sighs dramatically. "I didn't want to risk his return, so I had to destroy his stone body and scatter its pieces," she says nonchalantly. Suddenly she fixes Eruka in her golden gaze, staring her down. "And I won't hesitate to do the same to you if you don't tell me _exactly_ how you traveled in time."

In an instant, the world around Eruka flips over. She _knows_. Her stomach lurches horribly; Medusa _knows_.

Free takes a step back, daring to release a growl from his throat. "You don't have any proof of that."

Medusa's grin shrinks into a pleased smirk. "Of course I do. You showed up in the middle of the city, next to a spell circle. Maka and Soul couldn't remember that their friends were mine now, and the Man with the Magic Eye," she looks pointedly at Free, "Has not seen the light of day in over two hundred years."

Eruka stares at her, wide-eyed, teeth chattering, while Medusa turns to eye her calmly. "So you'll tell me everything you know."

Eruka's dry lips struggle to form words. "You couldn't c-control it anyway," she stammers. "The circle's l-locked on to my magic."

Medusa's smirk doesn't waver. "Then you'll just tell me everything I need to do to make the spell myself," she says. "Or you'll just take me wherever I want to go. Isn't that right, Eruka?"

Eruka feels ready to faint. Free steps in front of her protectively, snarling. "She won't tell you anything," he snaps defiantly.

The slightest hint of a frown forms on Medusa's face, but she stops abruptly, looking towards the platform in the distance. Eruka and Free follow her gaze to Maka, leaning on Soul as they walk from the platform, blood dripping from cuts and gashes along their bodies, but very much alive.

Medusa's eyes narrow. "There's a reason they're my greatest enemies, I suppose," she mumbles, as if she's only mildly annoyed that they survived. Raising her arms, fingers pointed towards the meister and her weapon, she barely begins to chant her spell before her voice is replaced by a grating gasp.

Crona's sword seems to grow out of her chest, dripping dark red blood onto the floor and Medusa's bare feet. She sighs.

"Honestly, Crona, you should know that it would take more than that to kill me," she mutters. Behind her, Crona's gaunt body quivers. Two of their arms grasp the hilt of the sword that they've shoved through Medusa's back, while their other hands hold separate weapons to their sides. Their breath is pushed through their lips raggedly.

Medusa glances over her shoulder at them. "You'll have to be punished for this," she says drily. Crona's blank eyes widen. Shaking wildly, one more scream bursts out of their throat as another of their swords swiftly slices through the air and Medusa's skin.

Eruka squeezes her eyes shut and throws her hands over her mouth, stifling her screams and trying to keep the contents of her stomach where they belong, hearing only the _crack_ of bone splitting, the splatter of blood, and the sickening _thud_ of Medusa's torso hitting the floor. She squeaks a little when she feels some of the warm, red liquid splash onto her leg. Free loops his arm around her, setting his hand on her opposite shoulder and rubbing gently.

"G-go," A small voice suddenly breathes. Eruka looks up tentatively, trying her best to keep her gaze off of Medusa's divided body, and finds Crona looking past her with their mouth hanging open. "Maka… Go," they say again.

A frantic scream emits from Eruka's lips as bloodstained fingers wrap around her ankle. Medusa glares up at her and pulls, scowling like a rabid dog, and Free barely manages to keep Eruka from slipping into the pooling blood on the floor. He snarls back at the witch, kicking her head into the dirt and hoisting Eruka out of her grip.

"Go!" Crona yells.

Free sets Eruka down out of Medusa's reach. "They're right; she won't stay down for long," he says hurriedly. "Get on my back and hang on. We need to get out of here." His magic surrounds him as he transforms, crouching down so that Eruka can climb onto him.

"This isn't over!" Medusa shouts, hoisting what remains of herself up on her arms while Free runs on all fours to the exit, Eruka clinging to his fur. "I'll find you! No matter where you go, or what time you run to, I'll _find you_!"

Eruka buries her face in the back of his neck, hoping Free won't feel her terrified tears through his thick fur.

"Hey! You kids coming or what?" Free snaps. Eruka picks her head up, looking at Soul and Maka as they meet them in the field. Soul nods, but Maka stares sorrowfully behind them.

"But we need to help Crona," she says quietly. Eruka tries to compose herself.

"That Crona is beyond help," she says. "Whatever you did while you were fighting them helped for a moment, but they're a kishin. I'm sure we can find another Crona that's in better shape in another timeline."

Maka rounds on her suddenly. "How are you so _heartless_?!" she screams, grabbing for her, but Soul holds her back. "You can't just _replace_ someone like that! What if I said something like that about Free?!"

Eruka freezes, staring at her. Her hands tighten around Free's fur, silently relaying an unspoken truth, and a common ground.

"Are you three going to stand there staring at each other or are we going to get the heck outta here?!" Free barks. Eruka sighs.

"Just get on," she tells Soul and Maka. Free growls slightly.

"I am not a shuttle," he mutters but takes off anyway. Behind them, they can hear Crona scream again.

Medusa's rallied her army. Free's charge breaks through most of the dead-eyed soldiers, while Eruka throws bombs and Maka keeps them back with Soul's blade. It's pure chaos; the blood, the screeching, the bombs exploding, all rushing past their ears like sick, frenzied images. It's worse than anything Eruka's ever seen.

It makes her blood boil.

* * *

"Where are we?" Maka pants, leaning her hands onto her knees. Eruka's narrowed eyes look towards the mansion nearby.

"Where I should've started all along," she snaps.

Soul's gaze darts around, looking at every bush, every walkway in that expansive garden. "But… This is…" he begins, silencing himself before he finishes.

Eruka shakily rises from the circle. There's more cuts on her body now, and one on her ankle makes it particularly hard to stand. Their fight back to the circle left everyone exhausted and bloody, save Free, who has seemingly just discovered that he still has a stray kuni knife buried in his skull. He plucks it out like a minor splinter.

"Separating you and Maka didn't work," Eruka says, glaring at Soul. "The future that resulted was nothing at all like I wanted. It was a _nightmare_." She steps towards him, looking him right in his red, defensive eyes. "Maybe the only way to make sure you don't interfere with anything is to take one of you out of the picture entirely."

"Eruka, no offense, but your ideas haven't been right so far," Free speaks up. "I don't think this is a good idea."

She whips around, fixing her harsh glare on him. "You're not here to _think_ ," she shoots back. "When Soul comes up this walkway, you're going to kill him, no questions asked!"

" _Kill_ him?!" Maka and Soul both shout. Free looks hurt for a moment, but he slowly bares his fangs.

Eruka nods sharply, looking down the path to the mansion. "This is Soul's former home," she says, "and we're going to get rid of him before he even knows he's a weapon."

"Eruka," Free says, almost growling all of a sudden, "I am not a tool for you to use."

Maka grabs Free's arm as if such a puny little girl could hold him back. "I won't let you hurt him!" she yells. Free doesn't even acknowledge her; his angered gaze is fixed on Eruka, who stares right back into his eyes. Soul rushes to Maka, opening his mouth to speak, but they all fall silent when the sound of laughter carries to them over the garden.

Eruka moves to see the boy coming towards them, unruly white hair ruffling in the breeze, grinning with a small mouth full of missing teeth. He skids to a stop when he sees them, staring at the strange group.

"Who are you?" he says, staring hard at Soul. "… Wes?"

Maka lets go of Free's arm and darts in front of him. "Run Soul!" she screams, causing the boy to jump. "Run back home!"

"How do you know my name?" he asks, bringing his arms to his chest and curling up a little bit, seeming smaller.

"Kill him!" Eruka shouts at Free. The young Soul stares at her.

"K-kill me?" he whimpers.

Free focuses his rage on Soul, muttering his spell. Soul shrinks back under his gaze, turning to run, crying for his brother. Free slams Maka to the ground, pushing her out of the way as he roars and surges towards the boy.

"Wes! Wes help-!" He's cut off by a dreadful gurgle from his own throat. Maka screams viscerally, Soul stares in unimaginable horror, and Eruka finds the corners of her lips pulling upwards in an awful grin as the boy falls, a large spear-like icicle through his back.

Free shoots Eruka a hard stare, pulling his arm back. "Are you happy now?" he grumbles.

"Maka?" Soul says slowly, staring down at his hands. Transparency spreads from his fingers and feet, inching along his body like a deadly disease. Maka gasps, reaching for his hand. She grabs for his arm when her fingers pass right through his palm, but even that's intangible, so she grasps his shoulders as Soul looks at her, wide-eyed, as if he can't comprehend that he no longer exists.

"Soul!" Maka cries while her fingers slip through the fabric of his fading jacket. He opens his mouth, perhaps to call her name, perhaps to scream, but his lips are borne away before he's able to speak at all, the last fragments of his body fading away to nothing. The red shine of his eyes goes next, the final piece of the once stoic scythe, and suddenly there's nothing left. No trace that Soul ever lived beyond his childhood. Instead there lies a small boy, face down in the dirt, murdered abruptly by a weapon that will melt away.

Eruka lets Maka scream until it's obvious that her throat's horse. Harsh coughs and gasps rack her lungs rather than dreadful sobs, her nose is an ugly red, and her eyes have long since dried from shedding what seemed like a bucket's worth of tears. Soul's young, dead body is clasped tightly to her chest as she rocks him, blubbering unintelligible words into his white hair.

"She's pathetic," Eruka mutters. "Who'd do that?"

Free snorts, not meeting her eye. "I would, if you died," he growls. Eruka shoots him a perplexed look, but Free doesn't give her time to think about his words. He storms over to Maka and grabs her shoulder, pulling her apart from Soul. She screams again, as if she's unable to contemplate that her partner is dead or understand why she's being taken from him.

"Let's go," Free snaps, dragging Maka along towards where the circle sits hidden by hedges. Eruka nods once, following. Finally, Soul's gone. Surely now, she'll have the future she's wanted, away from everything she's afraid of. She pushes Free's grumpiness into the back of her mind, along with the whispering voice that chants her doubts. She's free now, she chuckles as she sets her hands on the circle, and nothing is going to ruin her mood.

Maka's gross sobbing is temporarily drowned out by the spell's sound, and Eruka rolls her eyes when she hears it again. For a moment, she wonders why the circle's wind hasn't died down, but she quickly realizes that it's the wind of the world around them, whipping her silver hair into her face and sand into her mouth, making her splutter.

"I thought we were supposed to be in Death City!" Free shouts over the roar of the wind. Eruka nods as she wipes stray spit away from her lips.

"We are!" she calls back. "My circle's not wrong!"

Free gazes around, brushing sand from his eyes. "Then where is _everything_?"

For a moment, the wind dies down. Eruka pauses from smearing sand off of her nose to look up at the gray clouds, casting dim sunlight down on the remains of the city.

Even Maka falls silent. The few toppled buildings they can see are buried in sand. The rest of the city and the entire horizon are barren save for tiny, battered, dead trees and the occasional stone or boulder. Desert formations have crumbled. No bug or animal can be seen.

"It's all dead," Maka breathes, clutching her chest and shaking. "I… I can't feel a single soul. Anywhere."

Eruka wraps her arms around herself. Her lip quivers as she stares at the desolate landscape, turning in a hesitant circle. Nothing; no one else is out there.

"Well that's it," Free mutters, looking down at her. "You're safe _now_ , Eruka. Everything that could've ever scared you is gone."

She backs away from him, shoulders trembling, as he bares his fangs at her and barks.

"Are you happy _now_?"


	9. Metamorphosis 9

The wind bites and tears at her clothes. It blows sand into her eyes, mouth, and hair, stinging against her skin like an insect swarm. Her eyes water before she blinks, wiping the dirt away, finally turning her gaze from the landscape and back to Maka and Free. She prepares an explanation, an apology perhaps. She has to say _something_.

Maka's fist collides with her face before she says anything. Pain splits across her face and warm blood follows it, accompanied by the harsh _cracking_ sound of her nose breaking. The sand adds to the pain when the blow knocks her backwards, throwing her back to the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

"You _killed_ him!" Maka screams, drawing back her bloodied fist. Eruka attempts to scramble to her feet, but the sand slips around beneath her. Maka jumps on her, pinning down her chest between her legs, slamming her fist into Eruka's cheek. "He's _gone_ and everything's ruined and it's all _your_ fault!"

Free grabs Maka suddenly, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and pulling her off of Eruka. With a growl, he throws her over the sand, where she tumbles for a moment until she lays face down, her chest quivering.

A muffled scream barely breaks through Eruka's fingers as she holds her hand over her mouth, tasting blood. She glances up at Free with eyes squinted and twitching in pain, but Free scarcely glances at her before turning and walking away as well.

The three of them form a triangle in the desolate landscape, each of them a point in the shape. Maka shakes with sobs, her fists clenching the sand after she picks herself up on her knees. Free sits down on the ground, his broad back facing Eruka.

Coughing blood into her hand, she sits up slowly. The sand blowing into her face is now getting caught in the sticky, smeared blood next to her lips, and she brushes it away wearily.

 _She's right_ , the voice whispers. It's louder than ever before, digging into her head like claws. _Look at this. This is what you wanted, isn't it? A world where you don't need to be afraid. Now there's no one left to fear._

Eruka shakes her head, facing the empty desert, staring with wet eyes at nothing.

 _Yet now your only remaining friend has abandoned you. You used him, didn't you? Just like Medusa._

She sniffs. Small, dark, wet circles form in the sand below her face. "No," she barely whispers, but she knows her demons are right.

 _He trusted you. He saw you as a friend, possibly more, but you never bothered to give him a chance. He was just a tool, wasn't he? Something for you to use._

"N-no," she says again, wrapping her arms around herself.

 _Medusa taught you well, didn't she?_

Eruka sucks in a breath through her teeth. Those disgusting words keep growing louder with every sentence, slashing her like a whip's repetitious, punishing blows.

She can just hear her; Medusa's taunting voice, blending in with her thoughts. The words even sound like hers, degrading and cruel. It's all too easy to imagine Medusa saying them.

 _You've turned out just like me. Look at everything you've done, all the destruction you've caused. I almost feel proud of you._

Eruka picks her head up slowly. The swirling sand seems to form her visage, standing over her with her arms crossed and her signature reptilian smirk over her lips, which move to form the words that plague her.

"You're alone now. I'm the only one left to speak to you," she purrs. "You don't need them. The Mizune, Free, even that young meister—they're all worthless anyway. Alone, you're safe."

Her voice and Eruka's thoughts line up almost too perfectly. She squints at the imaginary specter; a fragment of a woman long dead. Yet her memories, her words, her influence still lay buried in Eruka's head and soul. A part of her still lives in her, like a splinter buried deep beneath Eruka's skin.

"It's you," she says gradually. "The voice that keeps saying I've failed. It's you."

The pretend image does nothing to reply. Hesitatingly, haltingly, Eruka rises to her feet. Her boots crunch on the sand beneath her. She remembers exactly how tall Medusa was; Eruka's shorter than her, even when standing at her full height, but she still stares into Medusa's vacant yet glittering golden eyes.

"It was always you," she dares to snap at her. "You did all this to me. You're my doubt. Leftovers of your voice are still in here," she points to her head, "still talking. You did a lot of that." The image is fading, growing weaker. The roar of the wind cuts off Eruka's voice from anyone else.

"I won't listen anymore. Not to your influence, not to your lies, not to your criticisms," she says. Her fists begin to clench, but she takes a deep breath. She's getting worked up again, all nerves, twitching fingers, and misty eyes. Even standing up for herself shakes her. But drawing all her emotions to the surface and giving words to them also brings memories, which sting her eyes and cause her to tremble.

Yet she's not ashamed. While the wind still whips around her, the world seems to slow down as she closes her eyes and feels the sand beneath her boots, the air in her lungs, the gentle force of gravity keeping her tethered to the ground. She is here. She is solid. Medusa is but the remnant of a voice, a faded picture of a witch long dead. Eruka is real. Her heart beats and her eyelids flutter. Her eyes open to nothing but sand and a gray sky, but somehow it feels brighter than it did before she blocked out the world and became one with it at the same time.

"You don't control my future anymore," she whispers one final blow to her imaginary witch.

She moves bit by bit, turning to see silhouettes of Free and Maka through the storm. Fighting back the wind, she steps towards Free, squinting to try and keep the sand from her eyes.

Free doesn't move when she sets her hand on his shoulder.

"Free?" she says, trying to be heard above the wind. "I'm sorry."

His head turns slightly in her direction; he's listening. For a moment, she can almost hear the voice whispering the many ways she could mess up, but she refuses to acknowledge it.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes. "I was awful and treated you like dirt, but I want you to know that…" she hesitates. Quickly, she breathes again, feeling the wind against her cheek and the sun's warmth on her skin as it pokes through cracks in the clouds. "I want you to know… You mean a lot to me."

She sees one of his eyes now, the brown one that gazes at her with a bland contemplation. It makes her fingers shake slightly, but she keeps her voice steady. "I lashed out, I was angry, but I didn't mean it, and I wouldn't know what to do without you, so… Can you forgive me?"

He turns from her again, his shoulders slumping, and Eruka pulls her hands back. She's about to back away, a pathetic croak rising up her throat, when he reaches for her arm and yanks her towards him. She squeaks as he stands abruptly, pulling her to his chest and crushing her against him. She thinks he's apologizing, blubbering about how sorry he is, but one of his arms is tight around her head and she can barely breathe, not to mention hear what he's saying.

"Free," she mutters, her flushed face squished against his ribcage as she struggles to move her arms. "I can't breathe, you oversized lapdog!"

With one final, crushing squeeze – she swears she hears bones snapping – he releases her, holding her at arm's length, his hands on her shoulders. He smiles at her; a warm, comforting smile, and Eruka meets his eyes tentatively, setting one of her hands on his.

"Does that mean I'm forgiven?" she asks quietly. He chuckles and uses his free hand to ruffle her hat.

"Of course," he grins while Eruka squawks in protest. "I'm sorry I lost my temper too."

Eruka stomps backward, straightening her hat as best she can in the wild wind. "No problem," she mumbles, but with a warm smile on her lips. It takes courage for her to stretch her arm and weave her fingers between his, nestling their palms together, but just knowing he's there for her again makes her a little bit braver, a little bit stronger.

She's never seen his cheeks turn that shade of red. She wonders if she's crossed a line, until his fingers latch onto hers like he's afraid she'd die in an instant if he ever let go. His hand dwarfs hers and practically envelops it.

"Come on," he says, clearing his throat, not meeting her eyes as he scratches the back of his neck nervously. "Let's grab the meister and get out of here."

In spite of the desolation around them, Eruka finds herself beaming. _I missed you so much_ , she thinks, unspoken. "Okay," is all she says.

* * *

The garden sits peacefully, just how they left it. No blood on the ground, no arguing or screaming sounding through the hedges – everything's quiet.

Quiet until the back door to the nearby mansion slams shut, releasing one young boy from the stifling clutches of his piano lessons. Soul's shoes kick up grass as he races across the yard, his heart intact and energetically pumping blood through his veins, his face the picture of joy. He laughs, rolling down the hill, staining his white shirt with the green marks of freshly-cut grass, getting leaves caught in his snowy hair. He's unaware of the frog watching him from under a bush, and he's unaware of how important he is to the world. For now, he's alive, and he fills his living lungs with the fresh air of a cloudless summer morning.

* * *

Free leaps away from the circle as soon as it stops moving, grinning almost manically.

"I am _never_ getting back on that thing!" he gleefully howls at the sky. Eruka glances upwards, catching the first tinges of pink as morning begins to dust the clouds in a pastel glow. Going back just a minute before their first arrival erased all evidence of their first trip from Soul's garden entirely, and as proof, the city stands intact around them. The DWMA rises high above the other buildings, a solid pinnacle and testament to Death's strength. No airships, no madness wafting like a virus through the air, and no snakes. It's as if none of that ever happened.

And in this world, it hasn't.

Maka jumps up, her eyes darting around the alley. "Where is he?!" she says, a mix of excitement and anger in her high-pitched voice. Eruka glances at her passively as she stands from the circle, brushing some of the leftover sand from her hair with her fingers.

"He's probably asleep in his room," she says. "He won't remember any of our travels. Technically, he never came with us-!" she tries to explain as Maka rushes off, her coat flailing behind her in the morning breeze, and Eruka sighs and places her hands on her hips.

"She couldn't even manage a 'thank you,'" she mumbles, plopping herself down on a nearby crate. She squirms a little when she realizes that its surface is covered in dew.

Free watches Maka turn the corner to the other side of the building. "She's just happy Soul's back," he smiles. "You know, I kind of feel like I understand them better now."

Eruka rolls her eyes. "Don't you get sappy on me," she snaps, folding one leg over the other haughtily. "She's still a _meister_. It's not like that's changed."

Free sits down across from her, crossing his legs under him on the cobblestone. "But _you've_ changed," he says. Eruka's tight lips loosen as she gazes at him.

"Plus, I've learned that we're a lot like them," Free adds. "I don't agree with everything they say, and I don't think we'll ever be _best friends_ ," he gags as he makes quotation marks in the air, causing Eruka to giggle. "But I dunno. I mean, we all have someone we love. That's something we have in common."

Eruka's giggle dies out and a blush spreads across her face fast enough that her breath can't keep up, and it takes her a moment to remember to exhale. Free's not even looking at her, instead he's seemingly distracted by a window above them, watching it as if it's going to start moving across the wall.

"I can hear them up there," he says. "Maka found Soul. He's alive."

Eruka tries to subtly fan her face with her hand. "Yeah. Good for him."

Free turns back to her and she snaps her hand behind her back. "So what are we going to do now?" he asks. She shrugs.

"Go back to the Mizune, I guess. I mean, we tried everything. I don't think we have much hope of getting a better life," she sighs.

Free tilts his head. "I meant right now," he clarifies. "Are we going to just sit here or are we going to actually do something?"

Of course that's what he meant, Eruka thinks to herself, rising to her feet. "Well, I guess we should destroy the circle," she says. "You know, so no one else gets any ideas."

Free nods while Eruka sets her hands down on the circle's edge, staring across her creation one last time. In a way, it feels like destroying a work of art and disowning all the time she put into it, but she knows this is for the better. Even if no one else can use the circle, other witches would be able to copy its design if she lets it be.

So in a flash of light, the chalk of the circle floats off of the ground, where it's quickly snatched up by the wind and scattered across the sky, leaving nothing behind but a few stray fragments of chalk dust. Eruka stares at the shards of her circle as they're borne away from her, carried into the air and out of sight. She doesn't stop watching them until she can see them no longer, and even then her eyes still remain fixed on the sky as if they could somehow come back.

She only moves when Free taps her on the shoulder, drawing her attention, and she turns around to see where he's pointing with his other hand. Soul and Maka walk towards them, Soul looking wary, Maka appearing hesitant but still confident.

"Eruka Frog," she says, holding her head high. Eruka crosses her arms, watching her closely, and she sees Free tense out of the corner of her eye, ready to defend her. "I am… Grateful," she forces the words through her teeth as if it physically pains her to be kind to a witch, "For how you did the right thing today."

Eruka scoffs, frowning slightly. Maka may be a ball of rage compressed into a gangly teenager, but of course she's still a mushy little meister, obsessed with "virtue" and "the right thing."

"So I'm willing to offer you a chance," Maka adds.

Suddenly Eruka's negative thoughts towards her are thrown out the window and smashed into pieces on the lawn – pieces that she'll probably reassemble later, but for now Maka's got her attention.

"What kind of chance?"

* * *

Eruka can still smell the smoke, though it's almost overpowered by the scent of the now-empty takeout boxes still sitting on the table.

Almost.

They should really eat healthier, but whenever she tries to cook, Eruka always ends up almost burning down the apartment. Plus seeing Free discover sesame chicken was like watching him zealously convert to a new religion. She never finishes her boxes, anyway; she doesn't have that big of an appetite, so Free always cleans them out for her. She does find some entertainment in eating the fortune cookies, though.

" _Try new things_ ," she reads the slip of paper out loud. "Really? That's my fortune?"

"You tried bourbon chicken," Free points out from the couch. "Does that count?"

Eruka huffs, tossing the paper to the side. "It's not even a real fortune. It's just vague advice."

"But it's _good_ vague advice," Free says. "You _should_ try new things. Mostly new foods."

Eruka looks over at him. He's sprawled across the couch, his arms behind his head, one leg hanging down to the floor.

"So you can eat them if I don't like them," she says. He smirks.

"Exactly."

With a small blush, Eruka wonders for a moment when that smirk of his began to release butterflies in her stomach whenever he showed it to her.

No words are spoken for a few minutes. Free's eyes close, and Eruka assumes he's sleeping while she cleans the trash from the table. Takeout boxes, plastic soy sauce packets, flimsy wooden chopsticks. They've got to start some better eating habits or Eruka's sure that she and Free will singlehandedly cause the Death City landfill to overflow.

Death City. She pauses for a moment, hovering over the trashcan, in the middle of drawing the full bag from the bin. It still feels weird to say that she lives among meisters and weapons. Of course, anything's an improvement from Medusa's former home, but Soul and Maka's apartment is just down the hall. Death _himself_ lives in the same city she now calls home.

"Hey, are you going to actually take out the trash or just stare at it? I'm almost jealous," Free chuckles, wrapping his arms around her from behind. His touch is warm and envelops her like a soft, firm blanket, and Eruka leans instinctively into his chest.

"I was just thinking about things," she says softly. Free _hms_ slightly, a sign for her to continue. "That meeting tomorrow is making me nervous."

Free hugs her closer, his strong arms around her waist. "You've done it plenty of times before. I'm sure you'll do great," he tells her.

She sighs. "Yeah, but I'm not making much progress," she admits. "I've been going to these meetings for over a month now, and nothing seems to have changed."

He doesn't say anything for a moment, but Eruka can feel the warmth of his breath in her hair and the movement of his chest against her back.

"Well, no one said this would be easy," he says finally. "You're actually carving out your own future, instead of just trying to make a quick jump there. It's hard, but we both agreed in the beginning that it would be worth it, remember?"

She nods mutely. Of course she remembers; Maka won't let her forget.

"It doesn't feel right though," she murmurs. "Like I've failed. Like something's missing."

"You haven't failed," Free says quickly. "You've succeeded in ways no other witch has. You're really important, Eruka. Not just to me."

Her blush comes back, fiercer this time. "I'm really not," she squeaks. Free scoffs.

"Of course you are. First, who saved the world?"

Eruka frowns. "By fixing her own mess?" she mutters, but Free unwinds one arm and pokes her cheek.

"You did. Second, who's the important witch approved by Death to be an ambassador for her kind, maybe even helping to save her entire race?"

Eruka shifts on her feet slightly. "I'm not important," she says meekly. Free suddenly lifts her in the air, holding her above his head as Eruka squeaks in surprise.

"Not putting you down until you say you're important!" he beams. Eruka splutters unintelligibly, and Free tilts his ear towards her. "Can't hear you," he teases.

Eruka's legs flail around. "I'm important! I'm important, you giant mutt, so _put me down_!"

Free laughs, but he lets her down softly, her socks gently settling back down on the floor.

"You're important," he repeats, poking her nose. "Don't ever forget that, or I'll hold you in the air until you shout so much about your own greatness that even Black Star will be baffled."

Eruka finds herself smiling at her loveable idiot. "I don't doubt that," she says. She still isn't entirely content, but at least she has him by her side.

Free doesn't reply, but he watches her closely. She meets his eyes, relaxing in the smooth brown color of one, and the mystery of the other. Slowly, wordlessly, he brings his hand to her face, his touch igniting what seems like flames across her cheeks that only grow warmer when he runs his thumb along her lip, her eyes widening as his gaze moves from her eyes to her mouth.

"… May I?" he says quietly, barely a whisper. "It… You know, it might help you feel better."

Eruka chuckles in spite of herself. "Obviously _that's_ the only reason you'd ever want to kiss me," she jokes. Free grins sheepishly.

"Well, maybe I was making excuses because you're cute," he confesses.

She smiles, admiring how his own blush lights up his face, when he scoops his arms under hers and lifts her up once again, hoisting her up to his eye level as he holds her to his chest. He waits for a moment, looking over her face with an intense admiration that has her feeling, for the first time in her life, priceless.

"So can I?" he breathes. She winds her arms around his neck, bringing their faces even closer.

"No one's stopping you," murmurs Eruka, her lips barely moving.

He kisses her with a surprising tenderness, and it's as if the world suddenly clicks into place.

* * *

 _Thank you all for reading! I'd like to say thanks to khaleesimaka, jcrycolr3wradcse, and piercelovewonton for their help with beta work, encouragement, and lovely art. This fic wouldn't be here without you! (Be sure to check out piercelovewonton's art for this fic on tumblr.) I also owe the inspiration for this fic to "The Cutie Re-mark."_

Metamorphosis _was a very personal fic for me. I began writing it when I was at a bad point in my life, and some of my struggles were projected through Eruka. The constant fear of messing up, of not being enough, but still wanting to make something of yourself, is something I've faced often. Even the remnant of Medusa's voice inside Eruka's head was based of experience - sometimes people can say hurtful things so much that they stick with you, even blending with your own thoughts to the point that you can't tell what's your voice and what's their influence. But trust me: that voice is not your own, and you are so much more than it. It may take a while to begin to ignore it, and recovery is never a quick process. I'm still trying to get better, but that's the key word: trying. Genuinely trying is the best thing you can do for yourself._

 _I hope all my readers have a wonderful day, and keep on fighting. Your future is in your hands._


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